Have you ever felt an earthquake before? Would you like to know more about how earthquakes happen and what is the Japanese technology to keep everyone safe during earthquakes? Here are five exciting earthquakes facts for kids.
The Earth’s crust is made up of many plates of rock. These plates move and rub against each other. Earthquakes are caused by the plates releasing shock waves that shake the Earth. Earthquakes usually happen at the places which lie on ‘fault lines’ where the plates meet.
There is an area called the ‘Ring of fire’ where the most earthquakes happen because a lot of plates touch there.
When earthquakes happen they can cause avalanches in snowy places and when they happen under the sea they can cause giant tidal waves called tsunamis.
Earthquakes are measured on a scale which is named after Charles Richter who created it in 1935. The scale goes from less than 2.0 to more than 10.0. The highest recorded earthquake on the scale was a 9.5 which is a really strong earthquake that causes a lot of damage.
Earthquakes that are less than 2.0 on the Richter scale are called ‘microquakes’ . They are so little we can’t even feel them but there are about 8000 microquakes a day on Earth. Earthquakes are considered major once they are above number 7 on the Richter scale. Earthquakes that are above number 9 on the Richter scale are very rare. They only happen once every 20 years.
The quakes that happen on the moon are called ‘Moonquakes’. They are caused a little differently to Earthquakes. They are still caused by the moon’s crust but they are affected by the gravitational pull of Earth. Moonquakes are also caused by the heat of the Sun which causes the moon’s crust to expand.
There are also quakes on other planets such as Mars, these are called ‘Marsquakes’.
Engineers that make buildings have to think about how to save them from being destroyed by earthquakes. They have spent years and years coming up with new ways to protect buildings. Japanese engineers have designed a new technology that lifts the building up on a cushion of air to protect it from the earthquake.
There are sensors in the ground that know when an earthquake is coming and they send a signal to the cushion so it fills with air. The air pushes the building away from its foundations so the ground shakes but the building doesn’t. How cool!
The myth comes from the behaviour of real catfish. They like to bury themselves under the mud and then wiggle around, this disturbs the mud above them. The giant catfish is called Namazu and it was believed that the Kashima-god weighs him down with a large stone. But when the Kashima-god isn’t paying attention Namazu wiggles around and causes earthquakes.
We hope you enjoyed learning more things about earthquakes as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you can move on to learn about other ones like: Volcano, Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Floods, Natural disasters, Blizzard and Tsunami.
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