Earthquakes And Its Impact On The World

Earthquakes have the potential to destroy and cause a lot of harm or they just make the ground shake a little. Sometimes earthquakes with low magnitudes cause a lot of harm, and a high magnitude one causes a small amount of damage. This usually isn’t the case. Two Earthquakes with high magnitudes each caused a different amount of damage. These two are the earthquake that happened in Sumatra, Indonesia in December 26, 2004, and the earthquake that happened in Rat Island , Alaska in April 2, 1965.

California’s unique geography as a state makes it a very appealing place to call home. From the odd east to west transverse San Gabriel mountain ranges of the Los Angeles Basin, to the bumpy coastal ranges of the Bay Area, any person can find a compatible topographic terrain to their liking. California may seem to be the perfect place to live with its ideal climate and extensive geographic features. However, due to California’s location over the shifting continental plates, coupled with its enormous and also multiple faults, at any time this great state can fall victim to a seismic disaster. After examining evidence from both Rong-Gong Lin’s II Los Angeles Times article of April 18, 2016 and the NOVA videos Killer Quake ( 2006), Earthquake (2007), as well as Geologic Journey II – Episode 3 (The Pacific Rim: Americas) – Part 3 (San Francisco) and The Great San Francisco Earthquake (American Experience ~ 2005), one can take a comparative account of the three major earthquakes of California’s past. Although each earthquake was very devastating on is own; the Great Quake 0f 1906, the Loma Prieta quake of 1989, and the NorthRidge quake of 1994 each amounted to an extensive forfeiture of property and life. Each of these earthquakes created much suffering and loss. It is imperative for each citizen of this great state to understand the damage that a California quake can actually do and be prepared; for the threat of one always looms.

Earthquakes have afflicted the world since its inception. The sudden release of energy from volcanoes or displacing of earth plates can result in disasters of extreme magnitude. These usually naturally occurring phenomenon have been responsible from wiping out entire towns throughout history and until today continue to produce major loss of life and infrastructure. It can take years for a city or country to recover from a major event of this kind and when a third world country is involved, the result is usually exponentially worse than in a developed country. In the past decades Japan, Chile and Haiti have suffered the devastation an earthquake produces. This document will concentrate in Haiti, a small country in the Caribbean. On

On August 24, 2014 a magnitude 6.0 earthquake occurred in and around the city of Napa, CA. The earthquake killed one person and injured over 150 people. And these people were treated at Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa [1]. More and more earthquakes occurred on this earth. So this grasps people’s attention.

Over more than 50 decades there has been multiple earthquakes that have been caused by the activity that takes place beneath and above the surface of the earth. For every earthquake there are various effects and consequences, these are generally not preventable but teachable moments. As we study and explore landforms we learn and better understand how today 's structures came about, what took place decades ago and where do we go from here. Thanks to the technology and inquiring minds we are able to study past events like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the 1964 Alaska earthquake. In comparing these two events we can get an overview of what happened and better prepare ourselves for something like that in the future.

In recorded history, there have been 151 earthquakes in Nevada that were a magnitude of 3.5 or higher. As previously mentioned, the mountain ranges of Nevada are typically bound on one side or the other by a fault. There are quaternary faults that range in ages from less than 150 years to around 1.8 million years in existence. The property damage in Nevada from earthquakes was .2 million dollars between 1196 and 2014 based on information from department of energy for the state. As we studied in our textbook, earthquakes can by a number of things, such as shifting faults, or volcanic

Of all the naturally occurring events on Earth, earthquakes are among the most devastating and bring a lot of truth to the statement, “Just because something is natural does not mean it is not dangerous.” Earthquakes are one of the most natural things I can think of that can cause massive damage and loss of human live in many instances, and the effects are sometimes long term. “Nothing happens without a force. Many geophysicists accept the theory that continents move as a result of the forces generated by mantel convection deep within Earth – motions driven by our planet’s internal heat energy” (Trefil & Hazen, 2010). According to National Geographic (1996-2012), constant movement in the tectonic plates that make up the Earth’s

The term earthquake comes from the Greek term for “shaking.” An earthquake is a visible rip across the Earth’s surface due to a release of energy and stored stress in the Earth’s crust and causes seismic waves. Earthquakes have been around since the time of the earliest civilizations. Earthquakes used to be compared to the “unrest of spiritual beings.” Specifically, Aristotle and the Ancient Greeks stated that earthquakes were the result of the “underground winds”. The earliest earthquakes were recorded by seismometers which calculate the waves generated by each earthquake. The original seismometer was the Wood – Anderson seismometer. When an earthquake would occur a structure would dangle and reflect light on an image. The image “drawn”

Earthquakes have been recorded throughout history for thousands of years. Even before seismographs in early times, there are records and accounts of mysterious ground shaking. Earthquakes occur when rocks break along an underground fault (UPSeis, 2007). This, in return, causes vibrations through the earth which causes ground shaking. The magnitude of the shaking varies depending on how great the movement along the fault is; the greater the movement, the bigger the earthquake. Some earthquakes are huge and cause significant damage, while others are small and cause little or no damage what-so-ever. Earthquakes are unpredictable, and can happen at any time. It is uncertain where an earthquake will strike, but there is a greater risk

The first “big one” that hit California was in San Francisco by the San Andreas Fault. This earthquake gave recognition to the dangers of the tectonic plates right beneath us. In Northridge, a 6.4 earthquake occurred that caused the I-5 and route 14 highway to

Earth is a life giving planet. It is also true that it’s never at rest. It is in a daily course of revolution and rotation, making us experience not only night and day, but also seasons. This planet goes through many changes that brings wonders, but also catastrophes. These forces of nature leave damages and deaths all over the world. One of these cataclysm is earthquakes. What exactly is an earthquake? An earthquake is the ground shaking caused by the sudden movement of one block or rock slipping past another along the faults (Lutgens, Tarbuck). There is a process that causes an earthquake to happen. First it involves the heating, followed by

People tremble when they hear the word; destruction, and tragedy: all words that come to mind when “earthquake” is heard. Earthquake is a natural calamity that has the power to destroy human lives in a few seconds; it is responsible for the huge damage to living and non-living things. It occurs without warning and can cause millions of money in destruction and deaths and also it is one of the most unpredictable and devastating occurrences Mother Nature dishes out. There is a sudden slip in the earth’s crust, which makes the earth shake causing mass destruction to buildings and people in the surrounding areas. These areas in the earth’s crust are called faults; the ground bends to a certain limit until the point of breaking, when it finally snaps, it sends vibrations up to

Earthquake Hazards occur when there are adverse effects on human activities. This can include surface faulting, ground shaking and liquefaction. In this essay I will be discussing the factors that affect earthquakes, whether human such as population density, urbanisation and earthquake mitigation or physical such as liquefaction, magnitude, landslides and proximity to the focus.

     An Earthquake is the shaking of the earth's surface caused by rapid movement of the earth's rocky outer layer. The sudden shaking of the ground that occurs when masses of rock change position below the Earth's surface is called an earthquake. The shifting masses send out shock waves that may be powerful enough to alter the surface of the Earth, thrusting up cliffs and opening great cracks in the ground.

In the U.S. alone, the average annual cost to repair damage caused by earthquakes is $4.4 billion USD. The worldwide figure is much larger than this but unquantifiable due to poorer countries unable to accurately determine the amount of damage that occurred. Year after year the cost of damages barely fluctuates from these ridiculously high figures and money must be pumped into repairing the damage done. Although a lot is being learnt about earthquakes and the fact that humans are now normally able to be alerted in time to evacuate the area the earthquake will affect, there have been no breakthroughs into reducing the amount of damage earthquakes cause to buildings and infrastructures.