Tectonic earthquakes occur anywhere in the earth where there is sufficient stored elastic strain energy to drive fracture propagation along a fault plane. The sides of a fault move past each other smoothly and

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Quaking or shaking of the earth is a common phenomenon undoubtedly known to humans from the earliest times. Before the development of

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It is estimated that around 500,000 earthquakes occur each year, detectable with current instrumentation. About 100,000 of these can be felt. Minor earthquakes occur nearly

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While most earthquakes are caused by movement of the Earth's tectonic plates, human activity can also produce earthquakes. Activities both above ground and below may change the stresses and strains on the crust, including building reservoirs, extracting

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The instrumental scales used to describe the size of an earthquake began with the Richter magnitude scalein the 1930s. It is a relatively simple measurement of an event's amplitude, and its

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The effects of earthquakes include, but are not limited to, the following:
Shaking and ground rupture
Shaking and ground ruptureare the main effects created by

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One of the most devastating earthquakes in recorded history was the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake, which occurred on 23 January 1556 in Shaanxi, China. More than 830,000 people died. Most houses in the area were yaodongs—dwellings carved out of loesshillsides—and many

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