Related topics: tsunami · japan · quake · tectonic plates · earth

Subducted seamounts may lead to larger earthquakes

There are thousands of mountains scattered across the seafloor, many of which are thousands of meters tall. These seamounts may have significant impacts on seismicity when the portion of the ocean floor they are on is subducted ...

Analyses of the Kahramanmaraş earthquake from February 2023

On February 6, 2023, the devastating magnitude MW 7.8 Kahramanmaraş earthquake in South East Türkiye ruptured multiple fault segments of the "East Anatolian Fault Zone' separating the Anatolian and Arabian tectonic plates.

Image: Italy's Mount Etna spews lava

One of the world's most active volcanoes, Mount Etna, erupted on Sunday—spewing lava and clouds of ash high over the Mediterranean island of Sicily. This image, captured on 13 November by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, ...

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Earthquake

An earthquake (also known as a tremor or temblor) is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes are recorded with a seismometer, also known as a seismograph. The moment magnitude of an earthquake is conventionally reported, or the related and mostly obsolete Richter magnitude, with magnitude 3 or lower earthquakes being mostly imperceptible and magnitude 7 causing serious damage over large areas. Intensity of shaking is measured on the modified Mercalli scale.

At the Earth's surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by shaking and sometimes displacing the ground. When a large earthquake epicenter is located offshore, the seabed sometimes suffers sufficient displacement to cause a tsunami. The shaking in earthquakes can also trigger landslides and occasionally volcanic activity.

In its most generic sense, the word earthquake is used to describe any seismic event — whether a natural phenomenon or an event caused by humans — that generates seismic waves. Earthquakes are caused mostly by rupture of geological faults, but also by volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts, and nuclear experiments. An earthquake's point of initial rupture is called its focus or hypocenter. The term epicenter refers to the point at ground level directly above the hypocenter.

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