Earthquakes, large and small, happen every single day along zones that wrap around the world like seams on a baseball. Most don’t bother anybody, so they don’t make the news. But every now and then a catastrophic earthquake hits people somewhere in the world with horrific destruction and immense suffering.
On Sept. 8, 2023, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco shook ancient villages apart, leaving thousands of people dead in the rubble. In February 2023, a large area of Turkey and Syria was devastated by two major earthquakes that hit in close succession.
As a geologist, I study the forces that cause earthquakes. Here’s why some seismic zones are very active while others may be quiet for generations before the stress builds into a catastrophic event.
Earth’s crust crashes into itself and pulls apart
Earthquakes are part of the normal behavior of the Earth. They occur with the movement of the tectonic plates that form the outer layer of the planet.
You can think of the plates as a more or less rigid outer shell that has to shift to allow the Earth to give off its internal heat.
Earthquakes, large and small, happen every single day along zones that wrap around the world like seams on a baseball. Most don’t bother anybody, so they don’t make the news. But every now and then a catastrophic earthquake hits people somewhere in the world with horrific destruction and immense suffering.
On Sept. 8, 2023, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco shook ancient villages apart, leaving thousands of people dead in the rubble. In February 2023, a large area of Turkey and Syria was devastated by two major earthquakes that hit in close succession.
As a geologist, I study the forces that cause earthquakes. Here’s why some seismic zones are very active while others may be quiet for generations before the stress builds into a catastrophic event.
Earth’s crust crashes into itself and pulls apart
Earthquakes are part of the normal behavior of the Earth. They occur with the movement of the tectonic plates that form the outer layer of the planet.
A team of Brazilian Greenpeace environmental activists on Friday placed a protect banner on a sandbank that has emerged in the middle of one of the major rivers of the
The Republican-controlled House approved a resolution Friday that would overturn a new Biden administration rule on automobile emissions that Republicans say would force Americans to buy unaffordable electric vehicles they don’t want
Japan and China said Friday they have reached a deal toward resolving their disputes over the discharge of treated radioactive wastewater from the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea and Beijing’s ban on Japanese seafood