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=Earthquakes - A Natural Disaster

Natural disasters are naturally created events that can be fatal. Natural Disasters include earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, storms, lightning, thunder, forest fires, mud slides, avalanches, and tsunamis. An earthquake is a natural disaster that occurs in certain regions in the world. It is caused when tectonic plates get stuck and move past each other causing friction. When the energy is released, an earthquake occurs. Earthquakes usually last under one minute and cannot be predicted. Scientists have been and are working on ways to predict earthquakes.

Earthquake Safety Measures There are various safety measures that individuals may utilize before, during, and after an earthquake. Before an earthquake, individuals may prepare an emergency kit, make a family communication plan, know the safest place in the room which is usually under the table or against an inside wall, and/or hold an earthquake drill. If a person is inside a building during an earthquake, that person should drop to the ground and find cover under a table or heavy furniture. But if there is nothing to hide under, the person should cover his or her head, go to an inside wall, and stay there until the earthquake stops. It is extremely important to stay away from cabinets, furniture, glass, or lightning fixtures that could possibly fall and cause injuries. The person should stay inside and should not use elevators. If a person is outside, however, he or she should stay outside and move away from any buildings, street lights, and wires. The person should remain in the open until the shaking stops, because buildings can collapse from the earthquake and injure or kill the person. After the earthquake concludes, a person should expect aftershocks, which may or may not be strong enough to cause injury or damage. It is important to open cabinets slowly because objects may have shifted and could fall out and cause injuries. A person should also wear long pants and long sleeves because objects could scratch the person. Many times the injuries from earthquakes result not from the earthquake itself, but from compromised structures that have been damaged from the earthquake.

=Causes of Earthquakes Earthquakes occur all over California. There is a surface in the earth called a fault line or fault plane. Earthquakes can be small and harmless or large and dangerous. At times, smaller earthquakes can lead to larger and dangerous earthquakes. The smaller ones are called foreshocks. The larger earthquake that follows is called the mainshock. Aftershocks consistently follow the mainshocks. They always occur in the same place as the mainshock. These aftershocks can last longer than the previous earthquakes. They can occur weeks, months, or years after the main shock, depending on the size of the mainshock. Most people cannot determine if there were foreshocks until the larger earthquake occurs. The earthquake starts in the ground in a place called the hypocenter. The earth’s layers are not all in one piece, rather there are many pieces. These pieces are called tectonic plates. The edges of the plates are called plate boundaries and the faults make up the boundaries. The faults are where the earthquakes occur. Scientists measure earthquakes on a scale from one to ten. Ten is the largest and one is the smallest. Approximately 10,000 earthquakes occur each year in California. Most of those earthquakes are extremely small and not detected. Several earthquakes that have occurred in California are large. In 1989 a large earthquake occurred in San Francisco and caused death and severe damage. The 1989 San Francisco Earthquake was above a 7.0. Another large earthquake occurred in 1994 and was called the Northridge Earthquake, and was located Northridge, California, near Los Angeles. It was above a 6.7 earthquake. The largest earthquake in the United States that has been recorded was in Alaska in 1964. A great deal of research has been conducted on earthquakes. This research has been done to help further understand how roads, buildings, houses, and other infrastructures can withstand earthquakes. Scientists have gone to outer space to view fault lines, initiation, and behavior of earthquakes. They have learned about a cycle of earthquakes. The cycle of the earthquakes include the silent accumulation of strain, transfer of stress between faults, release of strain, and the failure of faults. California is one the few places in the United States that has earthquakes. They do not occur regularly, but roads can be damaged, and many people can die from earthquakes.

=Earthquake Engineering Earthquake Engineering is a type of engineering in which engineers design ways to support buildings, houses, and structures so that they will withstand earthquakes. Earthquake engineers design the structure’s foundation so that it will not collapse during an earthquake. They design the buildings within the building codes so that they will be sturdy. The goal is to build an earthquake-safe building, while keeping the costs reasonably cheap. Earthquake engineers use seismic vibration control technology, which are seismic control devices, to help minimize the effects on earthquakes on buildings, homes, and other infrastructures. The seismic waves energy is reduced when the seismic waves penetrate the base of the building on the ground floor. A vibration control device is one of the many devices that help reduce the effects of earthquakes on buildings and structures. It helps with improving the seismic performance characteristics of the building. A superstructure can be penetrated by dampers, which will also help to scatter the waves in a wide range of frequencies. Dampers, which are important in earthquake engineering, obtain resonant wave frequencies of seismic waves. This will help reduce the detrimental effects that earthquakes have on the infrastructure. There are multiple aspects to seismic engineering. These aspects include Occurence modeling, Ground-motion modeling, Geophysical modeling, nonlinear and stochastic dynamic analysis, and Design and experimentation. Earthquake Engineers have the very important job of making buildings, houses, and infrastructure that can withstand earthquakes. They study what makes a building fall, and what portions of a building can be reinforced to make it stronger and more able to remain sturdy during an earthquake. These engineers study buildings, bridges, and other structures that have collapsed during earthquakes in order to learn what they need to do to reinforce those structures in the future. They must make sure that the structures can withstand not just an earthquake, but also many aftershocks that may follow the earthquake. They study what occurs when buildings and structures move side to side from the ground. This is the type of movement that occurs when an earthquake occurs. The building going side to side can cause even worse damage, which can ultimately cause the building to collapse. A collapsing building can result in many people dying. An earthquake is a natural disaster that can be very deadly. A large earthquake can destroy homes, buildings, and other infrastructure in a city. Many people can die and an area can be destroyed because of it. Although earthquakes cannot be predicted, earthquake engineers have developed ways to design buildings, homes, roads and bridges that can withstand earthquakes.

Additional Sources

https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Plate-Tectonics/Chap2-What-is-a-Plate

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-earthquake-and-what-causes-them-happen?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products

https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-earthquakes

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/animations/aftershocks.php

https://www.factslides.com/s-Earthquake

https://www.history.com/topics/1989-san-francisco-earthquake

https://www.history.com/topics/1994-northridge-earthquake

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/facts.php

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.__F4q8L0fMsRVwKyxmZv7gHaE7&pid=Api

https://www.aboutcivil.org/earthquake-engineering.html