Earthquakes, large and small, happen every single day along zones that wrap around the world like seams on a baseball. Most don't bother anybody, so they don't make the news. But every now and then a catastrophic earthquake hits people somewhere in the world with horrific destruction and immense suffering.
If you plot the earthquakes in 3D, they define slablike features that trace the plates sinking into the mantle.To understand what happens during an earthquake, put the palms of your hands together and press with some force.
. You are modeling a plate boundary fault. Each hand is one plate, and the surface of your hands is the fault. Your muscles are the plate tectonic system. Now, add some forward force to your right hand. You will find that it will eventually jerk forward when the forward force overcomes the friction between your palms. That sudden forward jerk is the earthquake.Fast plates move at up to 8 inches per year, driven mostly by the oceanic slabs sinking at subduction zones. Over time, they become stuck to each other by friction at the plate boundary. The attempted motion deforms the plate boundary zone elastically, like a loaded spring. At some point, the accumulated elastic energy overcomes the friction and the plate jerks forward, causing an earthquake.do not stop, so the plate boundary starts to accumulate elastic energy again, which will cause another earthquake—perhaps soon or perhaps far in the future. In the oceans, plate boundaries are narrow and well defined because the underlying rocks are very stiff. But within the continents, plate boundaries are often broad zones of deformed mountainous terrain crisscrossed by many faults. Those faults may persist for eons, even if the plate boundary becomes inactive. That is why sometimes earthquakes occur far from plate boundaries. A Google Earth image of creeks offset by movement along the San Andreas fault in southern California as the Pacific Plate moves to the northwest with respect to North America. Credit:
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