UNIT-III

ELEMENTS OF SEISMOLOGY

BY
SATHYAN S
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL
ENGINEERING
EARTHQUAKE:-
An earthquake is the shaking of the surface of the Earth, resulting
from the sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that
creates seismic waves.
The earthquake has begun to become a problem for humans since they
started to build structures.
The deaths and the damage to buildings that they cause have several
economic, social, psychological and even political effects .
Earthquake engineering is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering
that designs and analyzes structures, such as buildings and bridges,
with earthquakes in mind. Its overall goal is to make such structures
more resistant to earthquakes.
SEISMOLOGY:-
• It is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic
waves through the Earth.
• The field also includes studies of earthquake environmental effects
such as tsunamis as well as diverse seismic sources such as volcanic,
tectonic, oceanic, atmospheric, and artificial processes such as
explosions.
• A related field that uses geology to infer information regarding past
earthquakes is paleoseismology.
• seismograph&seismogram.
• Engineering seismology is the study and application of seismology for
engineering purposes. It generally applied to the branch of
seismology that deals with the assessment of the seismic hazard of a
site or region for the purposes of earthquake engineering.
ELEMENTS OF ENGINEERING SEISMOLOGY
I. Studying earthquake history and tectonics to assess the
earthquakes that could occur in a region and their characteristics
and frequency of occurrence.
II. Studying strong ground motions generated by earthquakes to
assess the expected shaking from future earthquakes with similar
characteristics. These strong ground motions could either be
observations from accelerometers or seismometers or those
simulated by computers using various techniques.
Layers of earth’s surface:-
Continental drift
Causes of earthquake
Natural cause Manmade
• Tectonic movements • Controlled sources
• Volcanic eruption • Reservoir induced
• Mining induced
• Rock fault zones
Plate tectonics
Six major plates Minor plate
1. African plate. 1. Arabian.
2. American plate. 2. Caribbean.
3. Nazca.
3. Antarctic plate.
4. Scotia plates.
4. Indo-Australian plate. 5. Philippine.
5. Eurasian plate. 6. etc….
6. Pacific plate.
Types of plate boundaries
• Convergent boundary
• Divergent boundary
• Transform boundary
Convergent boundary
• Move towards each other and collide.
Three possibilities:-
1. Oceanic X continental
2. Oceanic X oceanic
3. Continental X continental
Oceanic X continental
• Creates a Subduction zone.
• Destruction of crust.
• It results in deep, narrow and
long trenches along the
subduction boundaries.
Oceanic X oceanic
 Continental X continental

• No subduction
• Results in Buckling,
fracturing and
faulting.
Divergent boundary
Transform boundary
Rock fault
• in geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of
rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result
of rock-mass movement. Large faults within the Earth's crust result
from the action of plate tectonic forces, with the largest forming the
boundaries between the plates, such as subduction zones or
transform faults. Energy release associated with rapid movement on
active faults is the cause of most earthquakes.
Terminology
Classification
• Normal fault
• Reverse fault
• strike slip fault.
• Hinge fault.