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An earthquake is caused by a sudden slip on a fault. Tectonic plates are always slowly moving, but they can get stuck at their edges due to friction.When the stress on the edge of a tectonic plate overcomes the friction, there is an earthquake that releases energy in waves that travel through the Earth's crust and cause the shaking that is felt.
These waves can travel through any type of material, including fluids, and can travel nearly 1.7 times faster than the S waves. In air, they take the form of sound waves, hence they travel at the speed of sound. Typical speeds are 330 m/s in air, 1450 m/s in water and about 5000 m/s in granite.
A P wave (primary wave or pressure wave) is one of the two main types of elastic body waves, called seismic waves in seismology. P waves travel faster than other seismic waves and hence are the first signal from an earthquake to arrive at any affected location or at a seismograph. P waves may be transmitted through gases, liquids, or solids.
Rayleigh waves emanating outward from the epicenter of an earthquake travel along the surface of the earth at about 10 times the speed of sound in air (0.340 km/s), that is ~3 km/s. Due to their higher speed, the P and S waves generated by an earthquake arrive before the surface waves.
Seismology (/ s aɪ z ˈ m ɒ l ə dʒ i, s aɪ s-/; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (seismós) meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (-logía) meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic waves through planetary bodies.
Only two of those generated damage, the 1960 Chile earthquake and the 1964 Alaska earthquake, which generated waves of almost 4 feet at the San Francisco Presidio, the authors reported.
Scientists have yet to pinpoint the fault that ruptured in New Jersey on April 5 and rattled much of the Northeast. Now, U.S. Geological Survey researchers are in the process of installing new ...
Former security doorman Jim Ruble recalls an eerie stillness at the state Capitol moments before the Nisqually earthquake struck in 2001. ‘The air was very still.’ WA native recounts memory of ...