Earthquakes

Below is a free term papers summary of the paper "Earthquakes." If you sign up, you can be reading the rest of this term papers in under two minutes. Registered users should login to view this term paper.

Term Paper Title	Earthquakes
# of Words	1319
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	5.28

Earthquakes

Earthquakes

     Earthquakes have plagued our lives for as long as people have inhabited
the earth. These dangerous acts of the earth have been the cause of many deaths
in the past century. So what can be done about these violent eruptions that take
place nearly with out warning? Predicting an earthquake until now has almost
been technologically impossible. With improvements in technology, lives have
been saved and many more will. All that remains is to research what takes place
before, during, and after an earthquake. This has been done for years to the
point now that a successful earthquake prediction was made and was accurate.
This paper will discuss a little about earthquakes in general and then about how
predictions are made.
        Earthquake, "vibrations produced in the earth's crust when rocks in
which elastic strain has been building up suddenly rupture, and then
rebound."(Associated Press 1993) The vibrations can range from barely noticeable
to catastrophically destructive. Six kinds of shock waves are generated in the
process. Two are classified as body waves—that is, they travel through the
earth's interior—and the other four are surface waves. The waves are further
differentiated by the kinds of motions they impart to rock particles. Primary or
compressional waves (P waves) send particles oscillating back and forth in the
same direction as the waves are traveling, whereas secondary or transverse shear
waves (S waves) impart vibrations perpendicular to their direction of travel. P
waves always travel at higher velocities than S waves, so whenever an earthquake
occurs, P waves are the first to arrive and to be recorded at geophysical
research stations worldwide.(Associated Press 1993)
     Earthquake waves were observed in this and other ways for centuries, but
more scientific theories as to the causes of quakes were not proposed until
modern times. One such concept was advanced in 1859 by the Irish engineer Robert
Mallet. Perhaps drawing on his knowledge of the strength and behavior of
construction materials subjected to strain, Mallet proposed that earthquakes
occurred “either by sudden flexure and constraint of the elastic materials
forming a portion of the earth's crust or by their giving way and becoming
fractured.”(Butler 1995)
        Later, in the 1870s, the English geologist John Milne devised a
forerunner of today's earthquake-recording device, or seismograph. A simple
pendulum and needle suspended above a smoked-glass plate, i...

This is not the end of the termpaper! Register below to see the complete version of this term paper.

Membership Plans	Credit Card	Check

1 month membership

3 month membership (You Save 50%)

6 month membership (You Save 67%)

Copyright © 2002-2007 Mid Term Papers. All rights reserved. This term papers website is used for research purposes only.
If you have forgotten your username or password, please click here.
If you like to cancel your account, please click here.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22