GEL 20 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Shaanxi, Hypocenter, Loess
Document Summary
Resulting tsunami affected chile, hawaii, japan, the philippines, alaska, new. Tsunami waves as high as 35 feet as far away as japan and the philippines. Contours and numbers are tsunami travel time in hours. People lived in caves of loess (wind-blown dust) and they collapsed. Fault: a crack in earth"s crust or lithosphere that allows rock to slide and move (also called plate boundaries) . Hypocenter/ focus: the point along a fault, usually beneath the surface of the earth, where the fault actually breaks and slips (moves). Epicenter: point on earth"s surface directly above the hypocenter. Seismic (earthquake) waves travel outward in all directions from the focus of an earthquake. These travel slowest and do the most damage. Today: same concept but with lasers or electric currents, and digital output. We know how fast seismic waves travel. Earthquake triangulation: data from three seismic stations can be used to find the epicenter of an earthquake.
