The Power of Earthquakes
Earthquakes have inspired both fear and curiosity in people throughout history. While ancient peoples used myths to explain earthquakes, modern scientists have developed the theory of plate tectonics. According to this theory, the Earth’s surface is broken into many pieces that can move against eachother, causing tremors at the Earth’s surface. To better understand these events, scientists have developed sophisticated equipment to measure, record, and even begin to predict future earthquakes. While the scientists of todaymay understand a great deal more than our ancestors did, they also recognize that there is still much to learn about the destructive powers held deep within the Earth.
Before scientific explanations were established, many cultures explained earthquakes by attributing them to the movements of mythical creatures, such as frogs, turtles, and even flea-infested dogs. Japanese mythology tells of a great catfish guarded by the deity Kashima. When Kashima let his guard down, the catfish thrashed about, causing the Earth to tremble. In India, myths tell of the Earth being held upon the shoulders of an elephant that shook its head when tired. The Greeks believed that the shaking of the Earth was the rumbling of the god Poseidon’s horses traveling through the skies or across the Earth. Or it was caused by Poseidon pounding his trident on the ground. The number and variety of these mythological explanations for earthquakes show how important it has always been to people everywhere to understand what causes the mysterious shakings of the Earth.
Beginning in the early 1960s, many in the scientific community began espousing the theory of plate tectonics, which explains that the surface of the Earth, the crust, is broken into many pieces called tectonic plates. Some of these plates are extremely large, such as the Eurasian Plate, on which sits most of Europe and Asia. Others are smaller, such as the Caribbean Plate, which is mostly underwater in the Caribbean Sea. These plates float on the Earth’s mantle, a bed of molten rock called magma. Deeper forces inside the Earth’s core heat this magma and cause it to flow underneath the plates, pushing the plates. The tension created at the boundaries of opposing plates can often become strong enough to snap them past each other, sometimes with the violent force that we know as an earthquake.
Scientists describe the movement of the plates in relation to each other inthree principal ways. First, when two plates are forced into each other, one plateslides below the other. This is known as a convergent boundary. As the lower plategoes down, the upper plate often rises, forming mountains. The Himalayas, forexample, were formed by the Indian Plate crashing into the Eurasian Plate. Thesecond type of boundary is where two plates move apart from each other. Thisis known as a divergent boundary. An example of this is the Mid-Atlantic Rift,found at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. At this boundary, the North American Plate and the Eurasian plate are being forced apart, at an average rate of 2.5 centimeters per year. The third type is a transform boundary, where the edges of two plates slide in opposite directions parallel to each other. When thepressure between these plates is great enough, they snap violently past each other. This type of interaction between plates is the cause of many of the earthquakes felt in California.
Seismologists, the scientists who study earthquakes, use a device called aseismograph to measure the force of earthquakes and tremors. The most sophisticated of these are capable of measuring even the slightest tremor and locating its origin. The measuring system most commonly used is called the Richter Scale. It was invented in 1935 by a seismologist named Charles F.Richter. Because the difference in power between small and large earthquakesis so great, he developed a logarithmic scale in which an increase of one on the scale represents a tenfold increase in power. This means that an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.0, which would be easily felt at the Earth’s surface, is ten times more powerful than a magnitude 3.0 quake and 100 times morepowerful than a magnitude 2.0 quake, which often goes unnoticed. The data the scientists collect allow them not only to document past earthquakes, but to learn to predict future events.
While scientists today know much more about earthquakes than ever, there is still much to be learned. Seismologists have helped us understand morea bout how earthquakes happen and why they occur in some parts of the world but not others. All of this knowledge informs us about our Earth and protects us from some of the potential dangers. There are still, however, many forces in the Earth that we do not understand, with the potential to move, shake, and reshape the world.