EPSC 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Seismometer, Reflection Seismology, Lithosphere
11 Mar 2013
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The pacific plate is plunging under asia, which causes lots of earthquakes at the interface of the asian and pacific plates. The movement is jerky, never smooth, which causes tension to build up, and eventually overcomes friction. The longer time in between earthquakes, the greater in magnitude they will be. Disturbances of the plates on the ocean floor will cause waves. It took nine hours from the wave from japan to hit north america. It takes 13 hours by plane, which means the waves are traveling faster then the plane (over 1000km/h). Extremely fast when moving in the open ocean. In the open ocean, you would hardly notice a wave. The picture below show the height of the waves in the open ocean. The wave slows down from 1000 km/h to about 60 km/h but it is much greater in amplitude.
