Dangerous and Natural Energy

Dangerous and Natural Energy

An earthquake is the sudden movement of the Earth, caused by the sudden release of stored energy for a long time. The Earth's crust consists of a dozen plates of about 70 km thick, each with different physical and chemical characteristics. These slabs ("tectonic") are ushering in a process that takes millions of years and have been given the form we know today to the surface of our planet, causing the continents and geographical reliefs in a process that is far from complete.

Patterns in the distribution of earthquakes across the continental United States

The first earthquakes in America took place in Mexico and Peru in the fourteenth century, although it is not a clear description of its effects. In 1906, in the region of San Francisco, there were over 700 people and the city was devastated by the earthquake and subsequent fire in the largest earthquake in U.S. history 250,000 people left homeless. According to map provided by the USGS, the regions that are most likely to experience a significant earthquake on the next fifty years are located on the western seaboard of the US, in the Central US, around Charleston, SC, southern Alaska and on the big island of Hawaii. They do not know when the “big one” will occur because as we learned from our reading, science cannot predict when an earthquake will occur, only the magnitude, the radius in which it occurred, and the intensity (Coburn, 2002).

Note of the relative risk

With reference to the risk of being hit by earth quake, my home is in the area of central US where there is significant risk of earthquake occurring. The area in which I live is situated very close to the New Madrid Fault. The New Madrid Fault System extends 120 miles southward from the area of Charleston, Missouri, and Cairo, Illinois, through New Madrid and Caruthersville, following Interstate 55 to Blytheville and on down to Marked Tree, Arkansas. It crosses five state lines and cuts across the Mississippi River in three places and the Ohio River in two places.

Patterns in the distribution of earthquakes around the world

Around the world, more than 3,000 seismic events occur each year, but few of them are damaging or lethal. However, when major earthquakes occur in highly populated areas, they can cause major destruction and death tolls in the thousands.

The global distribution of seismicity is conditioned by the pattern of tectonic plates, which is a function of patterns of convection in the Earth's mantle and variations in the planet's spin rate. Most earthquakes are concentrated at the plate margins and in particular around the subduction zones, where crustal material is subsumed by overriding plates. Transcurrent plate margins also generate significant seismicity, as occurs along the west coast of North America, where the Pacific Plate is moving north against the continental plates to its east. Collisional plate margins generate seismicity through their impact on orogeny, or mountain building. In such regions, seismicity is usually associated with landslides (Coburn, ...