Essay On Earthquakes And Earthquakes

Powerful forces of nature can cause destruction to lives and property. While the continuing study of earthquakes and volcanoes helps us determine and better understand their powers, they continue to be natural phenomena that we need to learn even more about. Even with many differences in these two forces of nature, it is interesting that they also have commonalities. There are numerous similarities and differences between earthquakes and volcanoes.

Merriam Webster defines an earthquake as “a shaking or trembling of the earth that includes volcanic or tectonic in origin.” Two blocks of the earth suddenly sliding past each other results in an earthquake. The fault plain falls where the blocks slide past each other. The earthquake starts at the hypocenter while the part that happens on earth’s surface is called the epicenter (Lisa Wald, 2009).

The crust, the outermost layer of the earth, which compares to the shell or skin. The earth kind of looks like a big jawbreaker because it has so many layers. Tectonic plates move in a constant motion, driving them into one another. The plates will meet at a fault. One plate pushes against another one and creates friction, which holds the plates together at the fault line, the rest of the plate remains in motion. Once the pressure grows so strong, the plates slip and release all the built up energy in the form of seismic waves in all directions. The seismic waves travel through the earth making it shake. When they reach the surface, they shake everything else like houses and people (Lisa Wald, 2009). Locating earthquakes is the important key to keeping people