Earthquakes (B1)
Section outline
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An earthquake is one of the worst natural disasters on our earth. We think that the ground we stand on is very stable, but it isn’t. It moves quite a lot. In the last few decades, scientists have been able to find out why earthquakes happen.
Earthquakes happen when there is a sudden vibration in the earth’s crust. It’s like a large lorry that travels down your street. When it passes by, you feel your house shake.
Earthquakes can be caused by a lot of things :- Volcanoes that suddenly erupt
- Meteorites that hit the earth
- Underground explosions
- Buildings that fall apart
But most earthquakes happen because the Earth’s plates move.In the middle of the 20th century scientists found out that continents do not always stay in the same place. They have been moving on plates for millions of years. The earth’s surface is made up of many such plates. Where two plates meet magma comes out of the inner part of the Earth . These areas are called faults—breaks in the Earth’s crust.
Map of earthquakes 1900 - 2017 and their magnitudes
Image: Phoenix7777Own workOpenStreetMap contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons -
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