Reading Guide 11 -- Earthquakes

I don't consider this a particularly good treatment of Earthquakes. We will talk about much more in class. However, the following includes the important things you can glean from the book.

Pages 432-439

What is "elastic rebound theory"?

What is the difference between body waves and surface waves? Bewteen P and S waves?

Stare at fig 15.8. You will need to understand this in order to do the homework. Fig 15.9 will also be important to you.

You wondered how we know about the internal structure of the Earth? Well, guess what, it's from the study of seismicity. See figs 15.7 and 15.23 for examples.

On page 439, note that the Richter Magnitude scale is logarithmic. What does that mean?

Skipping ahead to pages 440-446, What are some of the factors that you list that control the amount of damage done by an EQ? Note that the material a building is built on is nearly as important as distance to the epicenter. What is the difference between the Richter Magnitude and the Mercalli Intensity?

On pages 446-449, the relationship between plate tectonics and EQ location should be obvious.

On pages 450-455 get the general idea of how EQs and associated seismic waves are used to determine the layers of the Earth.

Don't worry about gravity anomalies. The discussion about isostasy on page 457-458 should be old tricks to all of you by now.