A collection of research and insights from Stanford experts on where and how earthquakes happen, why prediction remains elusive, advances in detection and monitoring, links to human activities, how to prepare for "The Big One," and more.
A collection of research and insights from Stanford experts on where and how earthquakes happen, why prediction remains elusive, advances in detection and monitoring, links to human activities, how to prepare for "The Big One," and more.
The ground beneath our feet is always in motion. In an earthquake, it can roll, shudder and crack as rocky puzzle pieces in Earth’s outer layer lurch past one another. Forces that accumulate miles underground over centuries or longer can deliver a catastrophic burst of energy in a matter of seconds.
Most quakes are small. As many as 500,000 detectable earthquakes occur each year. Nearly 100,000 of them are strong enough to be felt, and only about 100 cause damage. They usually occur in the upper 10 miles or so of the Earth’s crust, and they’re concentrated along the boundaries where tectonic plates meet.
Over the past two decades, however, earthquakes have caused more than half of all deaths related to natural disasters. In any given quake, the extent of harm depends heavily on the population density and building designs in the place where it strikes. And worldwide, the human cost of these events falls overwhelmingly on the poor. One study found that even when property damages are roughly equal, measures of well-being decline more steeply in cities that have lower-income population and lower household savings. In another study, which followed children whose mothers experienced a major earthquake during pregnancy, researchers showed that exposure to this kind of acute stress in utero can have negative effects years later among children in poor households.
Read more at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences
Photo Credit: Angelo_Giordano via Pixabay
