Interesting Facts about Earthquake

One of the powerful and destructive forces of nature is an earthquake. When there is a sudden release of energy within the Earth’s crust seismic waves are created and this results in an earthquake. The intensity of an earthquake is measured using a Richter scale and it is recorded in a seismometer.

Interesting Facts about Earthquake

Here are a few interesting facts about earthquake.

In 350 BC, Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, discovered the soft ground shakes more than the hard and rocky ground when an earthquake occurs.

In America, the European settlers experienced an earthquake in the mid 17th century. However, the Spanish explorers made the earliest report of an earthquake in 1769. This occurred 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

In 1556, January 23, an earthquake occurred in Shansi, China killing approximately 830,000 people. This earthquake is considered as the deadliest in the history of mankind.

In 1751, primitive seismographs were first built; the reason for the occurrences of an earthquake was determined only in 1855.

An interesting statistics about earthquake is, there were 46 major earthquakes around the globe from 1900-1949. That is in a year the average is 1.08. However, between 1950 and 1999 an average of 1.64 earthquakes had occurred worldwide. That is 82 earthquakes were reported worldwide. Another interesting statistics is between 2000 and 2004, 10 major earthquakes have been reported world wide at an average of 2.5 earthquakes per year. You must have realized the magnitude and the frequency of the earthquake is increasing every year.

Many people believe the lunar cycle influences the earthquakes. However, it is not true because moon never influences earthquakes.

Reports show several million detectable earthquakes occur worldwide. However, the tremors of only 20% of the earthquake could be felt. The reason is the tremors are small or because the earthquakes occur in remote areas.

On May 22, 1960 an earthquake of magnitude 9.5 struck Southern Chile. This is the largest earthquake ever recorded. It killed thousands and around two million were left homeless. The intensity of this earthquake caused tsunami in the shores as far as Japan killing around 140 people.

An interesting fact about earthquake is that southern California witnesses an average of 10,000 earthquakes in a year. However, majority of these earthquakes are minor tremors that go unnoticed. Only 15 to 20 earthquakes are greater than magnitude 4.0.

Another interesting fact is the fault San Andreas is a series of faults known as fault zone and not a single fault. The length of this fault zone is more than 800 miles and up to 10 miles deep. An earthquake could occur along one of these fault zones at any time.

San Francisco Bay area is susceptible to major earthquakes. The middle portion of the Bay Bridge collapsed in the 1989 earthquake of Loma Prieta. Many motorists were killed because they were trapped between the beams.

It is true that animals can sense or detect earthquakes before it occurs. However, the behavior of the animals cannot be used as one of the methods to predict an occurrence of an earthquake. This is an unsolved mystery and scientists are still racking their brains as to what the animals would be sensing before the occurrence of an earthquake.