Bill Nye: Earthquakes

This is a rector scale!

A rector scale is used to express the total amount of energy released by an earthquake.

This is a Seismometer!

A Seismometer is an instrument fro measuring earthquakes.

This is a Seismograph!

A seismograph is an instrument for automatically detecting and recording the intensity, direction, and duration of a movement of the ground, especially of an earthquake.

This is a Seismic wave!

A seismic wave is an earth vibration generated by an earthquake or explosion

These are the Tectonic Plates!

Tectonicplates are the two sublayers of the earth's crust (lithosphere) that move, float, and sometimes fracture and whose interaction causes earthquakes.

This is an Epicenter (well it shows where the Epicenter is)!

An Epicenter is the point on the Earth's surface that is directly above the focus (the point of origin) of an earthquake. The epicenter is usually the location where the greatest damage associated with an earthquake occurs.

This is a Fault!

A fault is a crack in the Earth's crust. Typically, faults are associated with, or form, the boundaries between Earth's Tectonic plates In an active fault, the pieces of the Earth's crust along a fault move over time. The moving rocks can cause earthquake. Inactive faults had movement along them at one time, but no longer move.

There are thousands of earthquakes every year. When the tectonic plates come together they can create mountains. When plates slip, earthquakes, lava make a party! The hot molecules need more space, magma is extremely hot. To make islands, sometimes the hot magma goes into the ocean and creates a hard rock, eventually becoming an island. Also there are underwater volcanoes which over time build up hard magma, and create an island. The earth and magma underneath can be compared to liquid chocolate hardening. When it is somewhat dry, it creates a hard top layer. Still the magma or chocolate underneath is not dry, so when you tilt the chocolate bowl the liquid chocolate or magma moves the top layer of dried chocolate. When the magma tilts towards the ocean, the molten magma moves the surface of the earth while moving.
Each country has one of these stations so when someone from India can feel and earthquake, someone from Indonesia can feel the earthquake and someone from Cape Town, South Africa can feel the earthquake.The epicenter is where natural disasters come from.