Educational Seismology

Mr Paul Denton
British Geological Survey

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 What is an Earthquake ?

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 1995 Kobe Earthquake M6.9

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 Earthquakes – the terminology

fault
plane

focus

… and earthquake waves spread out … like ripples on a pond

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 What causes earthquakes?

Movements within the Earth’s

crust cause stress or stored
energy to build up.

As the stored energy

increases rocks begin
to deform.

When the stress gets too great, the rock

fractures along a fault, and the stored energy
is suddenly released as an earthquake,
releasing seismic waves.
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 Modelling elastic rebound theory with a brick and elastic

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 Computer Simulation M8.0 San Andreas

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http://visservices.sdsc.edu/projects/scec/m8/1.0 /
 Rupture processes

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http://youtu.be/A_dWf9Lr9qE
 Plate boundaries

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 Earthquakes Where and When ?

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 Large Earthquakes

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 Deep Earthquakes

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 Conservative Plate Boundary

Conservative: plates push past each

other sideways, causing earthquakes,
as the edges of both plates are crushed
and fractured

Two plate move sideways

past each other, e.g. San
Andreas and N. Anatolian
Faults.

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 Constructive Plate Boundary

Hot material wells up from deep inside the Earth

producing new oceanic plate material. As new
material wells up older material is pushed away.

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 Destructive Plate Boundary

Molten magma rises back

to the surface
Slab descends and partially melts

Destructive: plates move toward each other and

collide. Where an oceanic plate collides with a
continental plate, the oceanic plate tips down and
slides beneath the continental plate forming a deep
ocean trench. This type of movement is called
subduction. Where continental plates collide, they
form major mountain systems such as the
Himalayas.

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 Continental Collision

Colliding continents results in

uplift and the creation of new
mountain ranges such as the
Himalayas.

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 India and the
Himalaya

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 Regional events

Annually 400 >M4.0 35 > M5.0 2>M6.0

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 Gutenberg Richter relationship
Event magnitude

Estimate 6000 events >M3.0 (not measured)

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© NERC All rights reserved http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/demos/waves/wavemotion.html
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 Waves travelling as rays

P, PP

S, SS

SURFACE

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 http://ds.iris.edu/seismon/swaves/
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 Confusing signals like echos

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http://ds.iris.edu/ds/products/usarraygmv-super/
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 Zang Heng seismoscope 132AD
(maybe??)

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 The seismometer

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Seismic Monitoring Station

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 Streckheisen
(1990)

Insight Mars
lander 2016

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 SEP seismometer system

Top pivot

Suspension arm

Sensing
coil
Damping
plate
Mass
Bottom
pivot

Levelling
screw Period adjusting screw

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 Simple
low-cost
sensors

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 lego sensor in Leicester

M3.8 earthquake Grimsby

slinky sensor in Nottingham

Simple data logging

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software
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 Triangulate location

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 Earthquake safety

• Once you feel earthquake shaking, find a safe place

and perform “Duck Cover and Hold”.
• Be careful of landslides, rock falls and impending
hazards.
• Do not panic or perform unsafe act such as rushing,
jumping out of window.
• Before evacuating, if possible turn off flames or heat
sources that can cause fire.

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 NON-structural hazards

50% of injuries
Often preventable

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 Football-quakes

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