9781422269534

FACING THE WEATHER

FACING THE WEATHER

BLIZZARDS EARTHQUAKES FLOODS HURRICANES TORNADOES

FACING THE WEATHER

JACQUELINE HAVELKA

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Copyright © 2024 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America First printing 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-4861-4 Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4222-4863-8 ebook ISBN: 978-1-4222-6953-4 Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with the Library of Congress Developed and Produced by National Highlights, Inc. Editor: Jacqueline Havelka—Inform Scientific Cover and Interior Design, and layout by Priceless Digital Media, LLC Publisher’s Note: Websites listed in this book were active at the time of publication. The publisher is not responsible for websites that have changed their address or discontinued operation since the date of publication. The publisher reviews and updates the websites each time the book is reprinted.

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Chapter 1: What Makes an Earthquake...................................................7 Chapter 2: Interesting Facts about Earthquakes...................................19 Chapter 3: The Greatest Earthquakes of All Time.................................33 Chapter 4: Monitoring an Earthquake...................................................47 Chapter 5: Staying Safe in an Earthquake.............................................63 Series Glossary of Key Terms...............................................................72 Further Reading and Internet Resources..............................................74 Organizations to Contact......................................................................76 Index....................................................................................................77 Author’s Biography and Photo Credits..................................................80

KEY ICONS TO LOOK FOR:

Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text while building vocabulary skills.

Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic sports moments, and much more!

Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented there.

Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND

convective: describing a circulating heat current mantle: the interior part of Earth that is situated between the crust and central core phenomena: rare significant events seismic: a vibration caused by meteor impact, an explosion or an earthquake tectonic: describing the structure of the crust of a planet, such as Earth’s plates, and the formations and faults in it

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CHAPTER

WHAT MAKES AN EARTHQUAKE

Our planet consists of 20 tectonic plates that are constantly moving. As the plates shift, pressure increases and causes the Earth’s crust to break. The breaks allow stress to be released as energy. Earthquakes are natural phenomena that occur when there is a sudden release of energy in the Earth’s crust, resulting in seismic waves. This release of energy is typically caused by the movement of tectonic plates, the large sections of the Earth’s crust that float on the semifluid layer below. Several tectonic plates form the Earth’s crust. The plates constantly move, but very slowly, due to the convective currents in the underlying mantle . The boundaries where these plates meet and interact are called fault lines. There are three types of plate boundaries. Convergent boundaries are created when two tectonic plates collide or move toward each other. When one plate is

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forced beneath another, this is a process called subduction . These collisions are also termed reverse faults or thrust faults and can lead to intense pressure and stress in the crust, eventually causing an earthquake. Subduction zones are often associated with powerful earthquakes, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Most people are familiar with this type of fault because the tectonic plates push up mountain ranges. The Rocky Mountains and Himalaya are two examples.

The Himalayas is a mountain range in Asia, separating India from Tibet. This range is perhaps the world’s most famous convergent boundary because it has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including Mount Everest which is the highest. In fact, the Himalayan Mountains have over 100 peaks exceeding elevations of 23,622 feet (7,200 m) above sea level.

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Facing the Weather: Earthquakes

The Himalaya-Karakoram mountain range is the world’s greatest mountain range on land. It contains 96 of the world’s 109 peaks over 24,000 feet (7,315 m). Amazing! The longest land mountain range in the world is the Andes Mountain Range in South America. It stretches 4,700 miles (7,564 km) in length. However, the world’s longest mountain range is underwater. The Mid-Ocean Ridge stretches from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. It is 40,000 miles long (64,374 km) and goes around Asia, Australia, and Africa, under the Pacific Ocean, and extends to the North American West Coast. Even more amazing! Divergent boundaries occur when two tectonic plates move away from each other. As the plates separate, magma rises to fill the gap, creating new crust. The movement and interaction of these plates can result in earthquakes, although they are generally less severe than those at convergent boundaries. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is an example of a divergent boundary, which are also called normal faults because they create space between tectonic plates. Two examples are North America’s Basin and Range Province and the East African Rift Zone. Transform boundaries occur when two tectonic plates slide past each other horizontally. There is very little vertical movement. As the plates become interlocked, stress builds up due to friction along the fault line. When the stress overcomes the friction, the plates suddenly slip, releasing energy and causing an earthquake. These are also known as strike-slip faults. The San Andreas Fault in California is a well-known example of a transform boundary, as are the Anatolian Faults that ruptured during the February 2023 earthquake in Turkey. Transform boundaries are also called strike-slip faults.

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What Makes an Earthquake

Big Bend National Park is in the Basin and Range province and is another example of a divergent boundary which covers a vast area from southern Idaho to Sonora, Mexico and includes parts of California and Utah as well. The Earth's crust has been stretched up to 100% of its original width, creating large faults and carving out valleys.

Tectonic Plates The earth has seven major tectonic plates that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. What exactly is a tectonic plate? It is a large rigid piece of the Earth’s lithosphere. The plates constantly move and interact with each other, and that movement results in various geological events, including the formation of mountain ranges, volcanic activity, and earthquakes. The seven plates are the African Plate, Antarctic Plate, Eurasian Plate, Indo-Australian Plate, North American Plate, Pacific Plate, and South American Plate. The plates are named after the continents or oceans they cover. What causes the tectonic plates to move? The asthenosphere is a partially molten layer of the Earth’s mantle. Currents occur in

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Facing the Weather: Earthquakes

the molten material, causing the plates to slowly drift or collide or move apart from each other. The plates interact with each other at the plate boundaries described earlier in the chapter. Earthquakes occur when stress builds up along these plate boundaries and is suddenly released. Tectonic plate interaction greatly impacts the Earth’s surface. Volcanoes form when molten rock (magma) rises to the surface through plate tectonic activity. Mountain ranges are the result of the collision and uplift of rocks in the crust. The North American San Andreas Fault is a strike-slip fault that represents a major fracture in the Earth’s crust. This fault stretches for over 800 miles (1,288 km) throughout the state of California. In some places, the fault can be 10 miles (16 km) deep. The San Andreas

is not a single continuous fault, but rather a fault zone made up of many segments. Movement along any segment can cause on earthquake.

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What Makes an Earthquake

Watch this amazing video called Earthquakes 101 from National Geographic!

Tectonic plates have shaped the Earth’s surface and have created some of the most beautiful geological formations on our planet. The Biggest Fault on Earth The biggest fault on earth is actually under water! Called the Weber Deep, this is an ocean abyss that measures 4.47 miles (7.2 km) deep. Specifically it is located in the Banda Sea, off the coast of Indonesia, and scientists have known about it for over 100 years. The Weber Deep is the deepest point in the ocean that is not in a trench. Trenches are formed during the subduction of two tectonic plates—when one slides under the other. The Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean is the deepest trench on earth. The Weber Deep was formed differently. It is a deep abyss caused by a fault that ripped through the ocean floor to form a forearc basin, which is a depression in the ocean floor.

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Facing the Weather: Earthquakes

The fault plane runs through the famous Ring of Fire, a volcanic region containing 75 percent of the Earth’s volcanoes and where 90 percent of earthquakes occur. Only recently, scientists learned how the Weber Deep actually formed. Geologists analyzed maps of the Pacific Ocean floor in the Banda Sea region and discovered rocks in the bottom of the sea were cut by hundreds of straight parallel lines. They think that a massive piece of the Earth's crust, the size of Belgium, was ripped apart by a fault in the oceanic plates, forming the deep depression known as Weber Deep in the ocean floor.

The ocean abyss Weber Deep was caused by a fault that ripped through the ocean floor. It is in front of the curved chain of the volcanic Banda Islands of Indonesia.

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What Makes an Earthquake

The earth has seven major tectonic plates that constantly move. Interaction between the plates can cause earthquakes.

Faults that form in the earth’s crust have two main features: a fault line and a fault plane. The fault plane is the flat surface of the fault, and the fault line is the intersection of the fault plane with the ground surface. The fault plane of the Weber Deep is called the Banda Detachment, and scientists estimate that it covers an area of 23,166 square miles (60,000 square kilometers). They used a technique called bathymetry, a type of underwater topography, to collect the sea floor data. They now believe that this is Earth’s largest exposed fault plane of all those that have been identified so far. Because the Banda Detachment is a major fault, this area of Indonesia is at an extreme risk for tsunamis. Why? Because when the fault line slips, it can make a big earthquake which can trigger a massive tsunami.

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Facing the Weather: Earthquakes

Earthquakes and Volcanoes Earthquakes and volcanoes are closely connected because both occur due to dynamic processes in the Earth’s crust. Earthquakes and volcanoes are separate geological events, but they often occur in close proximity to each other. The majority of earthquakes occur along plate boundaries. Volcanoes, on the other hand, result from the movement of molten rock, or magma, from the Earth’s mantle to the surface. Volcanic eruptions are commonly associated with convergent plate boundaries where two plates collide and one sinks below the other. When the plate sinks, it heats up and releases water and other substances that cause the overlaying mantle to melt. The magma rises to the surface under the pressure, and volcanoes are formed. The Pacific Ring of Fire is also the site of most of the world’s volcanic activity. The Taal volcano is one of the most active volcanoes in the Philippines. Volcanoes can cause earthquakes, and earthquakes can cause volcanic eruptions. The relationship between earthquakes

WEATHER WONDER

Did you know that earthquakes can occur within tectonic plates? These are called intraplate earthquakes and occur away from the boundaries.

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What Makes an Earthquake

and volcanoes is very evident where tectonic plates meet. The movement of magma within a volcano can also trigger earthquakes. As magma rises through the Earth’s crust, it fractures surrounding rocks and generates seismic activity. These earthquakes are known as volcano-tectonic earthquakes and are typically of lower magnitude. Volcanic eruptions can generate earthquakes because the upward movement of magma can cause the overlying rocks to crack and shift, leading to volcanic earthquakes. These earthquakes are often accompanied by the release of ash and pyroclastic flows from the volcano. A pyroclastic flow is a fast moving current of volcanic matter and hot gas that flows away from a volcano at average speeds of 62 mph (100 kph) but can be as fast as 435 mph (700 kph). However, not all earthquakes lead to volcanic activity, and volcanic eruptions are not always caused by seismic activity.

Earthquake energy forms in an Earth layer called the asthenosphere. Currents in the molten rock cause energy to build and then release at the tectonic plate boundaries.

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Facing the Weather: Earthquakes