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Earthquakes
Earthquakes are one of the numerous natural disasters that humans experience on the planet earth. They are caused by plate movement on the crust of the earth when tension between the rocks causes them to slip therefore creating seismic waves. Earthquakes happen beneath the earth’s surface all the time however, most of the tremors are too small to be felt on the surface. Nevertheless, sometimes large quakes do occur and are felt by people on the surface. Some are just shakes that a few seconds that do not cause much damage and are overall just frighten people. But, there are times that the shakes are very large and last for minuets at a time and when this occurs then a lot of damage can happen and lives can even be lost. Due to the fear of earthquakes scientists have over time created ways of monitoring earthquakes and being able to closely predict when one will occur. The problem is not knowing if an earthquake will happen on a fault but more the fact of when and how large because earthquakes are inevitable along faults. Therefore, this paper will focus on the ways scientists are able to monitor plate movement and how measurements are taken to rate the amount of shaking that occurred during the quake.
Being able to predict and monitor earthquakes is very important to not only science but to the general public as well. If people are able to have an indication of when a quake may occur it could help save lives and many structures. Through creating new building codes that would be able to withstand larger shakes not only could money be saved by not having to rebuild but people’s lives wouldn’t be in a great danger that something could collapse on them. The two ways that scientists are able to monitor and predict is through, “studying the history of large earthquakes in a specific area and the rate at which strain accumulates in the rock” (Earthquakes). Since earthquakes occur on faults scientist can tell where an earthquake will happen....