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Earth's Interior, Plate Tectonics, and Earthquakes: Key Concepts, Study Guides, Projects, Research of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

Purdue UniversityEarth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

A concise overview of earth's interior layers, plate tectonics, and earthquakes. It covers topics such as the composition and characteristics of the crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core, as well as the processes driving plate movement and the resulting geological phenomena. The document also explains the different types of seismic waves, how seismograms are used to locate earthquakes, and factors influencing earthquake shaking. It further discusses earthquake prediction, mitigation strategies, and building resistance to earthquakes. This resource is valuable for students studying geology, geophysics, and related earth sciences.

Typology: Study Guides, Projects, Research

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EAPS 106, Geosciences in the Cinema
Exam 1 Study Guide
Know the following:
Unit 1 – Plate Tectonics
1. The Earth’s interior layers and which is thickest/thinnest.
- crust, thinnest, outermost layer
- mantle, thickest, solid but behaves plastically over time
- outer core, liquid layer, iron and nickel
- inner core, solid most innermost layer, iron and nickel
2. What a solar nebula is.
- a disc of gas and dust that surrounds all new stars
- a vast, rotating cloud of gas and dust in space that collapses under gravity to form a star and its
surrounding planetary system
3. Where the heat come from that causes new planets to be extremely hot inside.
- accretion, results from collisions of ever growing pieces of rock, each collision produces heat
- gravitational compression, as the planet forms gravitational force compresses its material
converting potential energy into heat
- radioactive decay
4. Why the inner core is hotter than the outer core yet is a solid.
- despite being hotter, the inner core is solid due to the immense pressure at that depth. This
pressure increases the melting point of the materials, making them solid even at extremely high
temperatures
5. Why the interior of the Earth is layered.
- differentiation, sinking of metals, rising of minerals
- the interior of young planets melted and denser element(iron) sink to the center forming an iron
core
- lighter elements(silicon and oxygen) rise to form a rocky mantle and crust
6. What is meant by plate tectonics.
- describes the large scale movement of Earth’s lithosphere, divided into several rigid plates
- these plates float on the semi-fluid asthenosphere
- move due to mantle convection, gravity, and the Earth’s rotation
- cause earthquakes, volcanic activity, formation of mountains, and creation of oceanic trenches
7. What lithosphere is.
- the surface of the Earth, a mosaic of 18 rigid plates
- crust and uppermost part of mantle
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EAPS 106, Geosciences in the Cinema

Exam 1 Study Guide

Know the following:

Unit 1 – Plate Tectonics

  1. The Earth’s interior layers and which is thickest/thinnest.
  • crust, thinnest, outermost layer
  • mantle, thickest, solid but behaves plastically over time
  • outer core, liquid layer, iron and nickel
  • inner core, solid most innermost layer, iron and nickel
  1. What a solar nebula is.
  • a disc of gas and dust that surrounds all new stars
  • a vast, rotating cloud of gas and dust in space that collapses under gravity to form a star and its surrounding planetary system
  1. Where the heat come from that causes new planets to be extremely hot inside.
  • accretion, results from collisions of ever growing pieces of rock, each collision produces heat
  • gravitational compression, as the planet forms gravitational force compresses its material converting potential energy into heat
  • radioactive decay
  1. Why the inner core is hotter than the outer core yet is a solid.
  • despite being hotter, the inner core is solid due to the immense pressure at that depth. This pressure increases the melting point of the materials, making them solid even at extremely high temperatures
  1. Why the interior of the Earth is layered.
  • differentiation, sinking of metals, rising of minerals
  • the interior of young planets melted and denser element(iron) sink to the center forming an iron core
  • lighter elements(silicon and oxygen) rise to form a rocky mantle and crust
  1. What is meant by plate tectonics.
  • describes the large scale movement of Earth’s lithosphere, divided into several rigid plates
  • these plates float on the semi-fluid asthenosphere
  • move due to mantle convection, gravity, and the Earth’s rotation
  • cause earthquakes, volcanic activity, formation of mountains, and creation of oceanic trenches
  1. What lithosphere is.
  • the surface of the Earth, a mosaic of 18 rigid plates
  • crust and uppermost part of mantle
  1. What asthenosphere is.
  • the plates(lithosphere move slowly over a weaker substrate(asthenosphere)
  • semi-fluid layer, molten rock, ductile can flow slowly over time
  1. Why hotter mantle beneath the asthenosphere does not flow as easily.
  • it is under much higher pressure that increases the mantle’s density
  1. Evidence of continental drift cited by Alfred Wegener.
  • N and S America coastlines fit with Europe and Africa
  • identical volcanic rocks on both sides of the Atlantic
  • fossils of non-swimmers found on both sides of modern oceans
  1. Why few scientists accepted Wegener’s theory of continental drift.
  • didn’t have a way to prove the continents could even move
  • he suggested that they drifted through the oceanic crust
  1. What a magnetic reversal is.
  • the process where Earth’s magnetic fields flips
  • the magnetic field weakens, becomes unstable, and eventually re-establishes with the opposite polarity
  1. How we know that our magnetic field has reversed itself many times through Earth’s past.
  • magnetic crystals in lava flows show that the poles often switched in the past
  1. The breakthrough observation that led to the theory of plate tectonics.
  • seafloor spreading
  • found where ocean crust forms and then moves away, meant continents could move without having to plow through oceans
  1. What a mid-ocean ridge is.
  • magma from below reaches the surface and cools to form a new ocean lithosphere that moves outward
  1. What a subduction zone is.
  • the Earth isn’t growing so ocean crust must also be destroyed
  • oceanic plates dive back into the Earth’s interior, give rise to the highest mountains, deepest trenches, biggest earthquakes, and most volcanoes
  1. What a transform plate boundary is.
  • where tectonic plates slide past each other on the surface of the Earth
  1. The kind of plate boundary that the San Andreas Fault is.
  • transform boundary between the Pacific and North American Plates
  1. That Hawaii does not lie on a plate boundary.
  • Hawaii is located in the middle of the Pacific plate, far from any boundary
  1. How plate tectonics may have led to the evolution of whales and dolphins from land mammals.
  • India broke off and collided with Asia
  • led to aquatic mammals due to the shallow waters and need to find food
  1. How conduction transfers heat.
  • heat transfers through fluid motions of liquids and gasses as well as solids that flow like a fluid

Unit 2 – Earthquakes

  1. About how many total earthquakes of any size occur globally each year.
  • 1.3 million
  1. The largest earthquake to occur on Earth over the past 100 years.
  • Chile in 1960
  1. On average, how often large earthquakes (≥M7.5) occur on the San Andreas Fault.
  • about every 150 years
  1. Where most earthquakes occur.
  • at or near plate boundaries, as this is where Earth’s crust is being torn apart to accommodate plate motions
  1. The concept of elastic rebound.
  • the crust bends like rubber(storing energy), then unbends (releasing energy)
  1. The concept of stick-slip behavior.
  • fault remains stuck while energy builds, then suddenly slip when energy is released
  1. What the rough parts of a fault that prevent slippage until they break are called.
  • asperities, prevent fault from sliding until they can be overcome
  1. How we observe the buildup of stress on a fault.
  • using very precise GPS
  1. The direction Japan moves between and during earthquakes.
  • Japan gets compressed to the west and during earthquake it rebounds back to the east from the stored elastic energy
  1. Where thrust faults occur.
  • compressional settings like subduction zones
  • fault is at an angle so that slip along the fault enables the region to shorten
  • doesn’t open up during an earthquake
  1. Where normal faults occur.
  • extensional settings like mid-ocean ridges
  • fault doesn’t open during an earthquake
  1. Where transform (strike-slip) faults occur.
  • where plates slide laterally past each other like transform plate boundaries
  • vertical, no headwall or footwall
  1. That faults do not open gaps during earthquakes.
  • faults never open gaps, plates just move along each other
  1. What an earthquake is.
  • location at the depth where the earthquake started
  • epicenter, the location at the surface above the depth where the earthquake started
  1. The different types of seismic waves.
  • body waves: p-waves and s-waves
  • surface waves: love waves and Rayleigh waves
  1. Characteristics of P waves.
  • p for primary or pressure
  • push-pull motion, compresses then expands like a sound wave
  • travels through solids, liquids, and gases
  • fastest seismic waves, first to arrive but cause the least shaking
  1. Characteristics of S waves.
  • s for secondary or shear
  • side-to-side motion, shear
  • travel only through solids
  • slower than p-waves, second to arrive
  1. Characteristics of surface waves. Love waves:
  • after Augustus Love
  • side-to-side motion Rayleigh waves
  • after Lord Rayleigh
  • up-down motion like an ocean wave Both:
  • travel only along the surface of a solid
  • surface waves are the last to arrive, but cause the most deformation
  1. How seismograms are used to locate an earthquake.
  • a measure of ground motion during an earthquake
  • records the arrival times of p-waves and s-waves
  • by measuring the time, calculate the distance from each station to the epicenter
  • triangulation using data from at least 3 stations
  • seismologists record seismic waves at seismic stations by using seismometers that produce seismograms
  1. What reflection seismology allows us to visualize.
  • using man-made explosions allows visualization of shallow crustal structure at depths of a few kilometer beneath the surface
  1. What earthquake seismology allows us to visualize.
  • uses seismic waves from earthquakes to visualize deep structures throughout the Earth’s interior, such as subduction plates and the core
  1. How we know that the outer core of the Earth is liquid.
  • Beno Gutenberg discovered from the s-wave shadow zone in 1913
  • the refraction of p-waves as they cross over to the inner core show us that the inner core is solid
  1. How much the amount of shaking varies between different magnitude earthquakes.
  • each unit increase is a difference by a factor of 10 increase in shaking
  • M=5 is 10 times greater than M=
  1. That smaller magnitude earthquakes occur more often.
  • bigger earthquakes take longer to build up
  1. The theoretical maximum magnitude earthquake that can occur.
  • M=10, would require a fault that circles the Earth, not possible
  1. The relationship between the magnitude of an earthquake and its duration.
  • duration of shaking increases with magnitude
  • based on the history of earthquakes in a region
  1. How GPS measurements of surface deformation can help estimate earthquake potential.
  • gps measurements enable us to measure a slip deficit, the amount an earthquake will need to slip in order to relieve elastic stress
  • knowing how fast the slip deficit is growing and the time since the last earthquake, enables one to forecast the potential size of the next earthquake
  1. When you stay inside or leave a building during an earthquake.
  • it depends on what country you’re in
  • if indoors, not in a third-world country, drop to the ground take cover under a table, stay away from glass and anything that could fall, use a doorway for shelter only if you know it is a strongly supported, loadbearing doorway, don’t use elevators
  • get out of the building if in a third-world country
  • if outdoors, stay outdoors, move away from buildings
  1. What you should do if on a high floor in a building during an earthquake.
  • don’t take the elevator, drop, take cover under a table
  1. How an earthquake early warning system works.
  • seismic waves travel slower than the speed of light, one can communicate a warning ahead of the shaking when p and s waves are detected
  1. How long after surface waves arrive poorly constructed buildings generally collapse.
  • a few seconds
  • better but not great built buildings can last 10 seconds
  1. The buildings that collapsed disproportionally during the 2008 Wenchuan, China Earthquake.
  • 7,000 poorly built schools collapsed killing 10,000 students
  1. The required percent chance of avoiding collapse during a California earthquake.
  • 90%
  • California building codes also mean that 25% of buildings might not be usable after a big earthquake
  1. What forced resonance is.
  • when forces can excite a natural frequency inherent to a structure that can greatly amplify deformation
  • spaghetti with marshmallow frequency difference
  1. Why diagonal beams help buildings to be more resistant to earthquakes.
  • provide resistance to the shearing that often causes buildings to collapse
  1. That the addition of simple corner studs can greatly improve building earthquake stability.
  2. The importance of a strong foundation for a building to be earthquake resistant.
  • buildings can fall over during an earthquake if not properly anchored to a strong foundation
  1. What liquefaction is.
  • water saturated soils lose all strength during shaking
  • water saturated sediments are shaking, causing the grains to lose contact and more easily slide
  • once shaking stops, the ground becomes strong again
  • solution, put drive pilings through the sediments into bedrock
  1. How an earthquake isolation system works.
  • mounting buildings on isolators made of layers of steel and rubber that absorb side-to-side motion