Exam 10: Earthquakes and Earth's Interior

Examine the words and/or phrases for each question below and determine the relationship among the majority of words/phrases. -Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.

Rank these "felt reports" for an earthquake affecting southernmost Vancouver Island, based on their Mercalli intensity value: A: Everyone in the Happy Valley suburb runs outside, all newer houses survive but one old barn collapsed. B: People inside the shops along Esquimalt Road felt it but few outside did so.The guy in the dry cleaners thought a truck had hit the building. C: One and two storey wooden houses along East Sooke Road are destroyed, the small bridge across the head of the inlet collapsed as did rock walls along Gillespie Road.Open cracks are prevalent in unconsolidated sediments around Sooke Inlet and there was a small mud geyser near Whiffen Spit. D: Tilted telephone poles and scaffolding outside a leaky condo pulled away near 6 mile Pub in Colwood.Many people outside noted tall trees and poles that seemed to sway without the wind blowing.

The ________ core is probably solid.

________ are not transmitted through the outer core.

Which buildings fare the worst, close to the epicentre of large earthquakes?

The top of the ________ is marked by the Moho discontinuity.

Which of the following foundation materials is most stable during earthquake shaking?

The ________ magnitude scale, better for the largest earthquakes, is a measure of the energy released as judged from the displacement on the fault, its surface area and the rock's shear strength.It can also be calculated from very long period seismograms.

Earthquakes result from the sudden release of elastic strain energy previously stored in rocks surrounding a zone of fault movement.

How can the exact distance to an earthquake be determined if you only have a single seismic station to record it?

________ discovered the crust-mantle seismic discontinuity in ________, proving that the Earth was not internally homogeneous but layered.

How is Moment Magnitude (MW )calculated?

What causes mud and sand volcanoes or geysers in a modern delta or low tide beach setting?

The ________ magnitude scale is a measure of the energy released as judged from the amplitude of the largest seismic wave.It does not directly measure the extent of building damage.

Briefly describe how an earthquake's intensity differs from its magnitude.

Tsunami are only serious threats to coastal areas near an earthquake epicentre because the waves have lost most of their energy after moving across 200 kilometres of open water.Is this statement correct? Why or why not?

What was the largest Richter magnitude ever recorded for an earthquake?

The epicentre of an earthquake is the ________.

Where do all large earthquakes occur?

________ is the maximum possible damage designation on the Mercalli scale.