Predicting Erthquakes

An earthquake, in the simplest terms, is when the earth shakes.

Did you know that there are hundreds of earthquakes every single day, not always strong enough for us to notice them? Then there are some massive ones that cause huge damage and loss of life. These terrifying events raise many questions; here are some answers.

Whose ‘fault’ is it when an earthquake happens?
The surface of the Earth is made of kilometres of hard rock broken into a puzzle of moving pieces called tectonic plates, which sit on a sea of hot, liquid rock that rolls as it cools, pushing the plates around. Earthquakes and volcanoes occur on the surface where they meet.

Plates are always technically in motion but are usually locked together, building stress until something underground snaps, freeing them to slide along known lines of fractured rock called faults, that can run for kilometres.

When the pressure suddenly releases and the plate moves, energy explodes into the surrounding rock.

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Plankton Creates Mountains

A world without the great mountain ranges – the Himalayas, the Alps, the Rockies, the Andes – is unimaginable, but they were not always a part of the Earth’s geography. Mountains didn’t start forming widely until 2 billion years ago, half way through the planet’s history. Now our research has revealed how primitive life played a key role in their introduction to the planet.

While the formation of mountains is usually associated with the collision of tectonic plates causing huge slabs of rock to be thrust skywards, our study has shown that this was triggered by an abundance of nutrients in the oceans 2 billion years ago which caused an explosion of planktonic life.

Timeline for the formation of mountains on Earth. J Johnston/University of Aberdeen, Author provided

Making mountains
Mountains are not just a beautiful backdrop for recreation, they are essential to the way the world works, through their influence on weather, climate, the distribution of fresh water and the erosion of rock to make cultivable soil.

Before there were mountains, the plate movements that reshape the distribution of oceans and continents only occurred on a limited scale. But the movement of these plates are essential to making mountains. The pressure of one plate pushing against another – typically an ocean plate hitting a continental plate – causes slabs of ocean rock to break off and stack up on top of each other as they are pushed from behind.  READ MORE...