Chapter 4
Faults and Seismicity
Faults are breaks in the rock where it has been broken apart by applied stress
There are different varieties of faults, based on how they have broken due to stress
Where do earthquakes occur?
Occur on plate boundaries
What are the types of faults and the stresses associated with them
There are 3 main types of faults:
o Normal Faults
o Reverse and Thrust Faults
o Transform Faults or Strike-slip
What causes an earthquake?
Stress and Strain
o Low stress: rock deforms but bounces back to normal when stress is released
o Greater stress: rock deforms but deformation doesn’t fully disappear when stress
o is released
We try to explain earthquakes using Elastic Rebound Theory, which has 4 steps:
o Baseline
o Building stress
o Rock Breaks, fault forms
o New baseline, cycle repeats
Elastic vs. Ductile Deformation
o Very brittle rocks have no elasticity and break easily with little stress
o Less brittle rocks have more elasticity
Release of Energy
o Most faults here are reverse faults
o Requires a lot of energy to break rock form “pushing” forces
o Scattering of EQs at deeper levels
Earthquake Waves
When we talk about ‘earthquake shaking’, there are two types of waves
Transform Boundaries:
o Transformation breaks essential for spreading and subduction
o Shallow earthquakes
o No consumption or generation of crust
Destructiveness of Earthquakes
o Depending on what soil is like, earthquakes can be destructive because of
geology that might amplify the shaking from an earthquake.
o Older buildings usually fall because of poor building methods. Modern buildings
are required to be built to withstand a certain degree of shaking, depending on
how at-risk the area is to earthquakes.
o When an earthquake happens, it releases a bunch of waves of different
frequencies and energy. If waves match the natural frequency of a building, the
waves will cause the building to shake faster until it breaks and collapses.
(visualization)
o One main effect that causes incredible damage is Liquefaction, where shaking
causes water-logged sediments to mix into a wet soup, and collapse or cause
buildings, pavements to sink in
Earthquake predictions
Causes of Earthquakes
o As mentioned earlier, earthquakes are the result of faulting, but what causes the
stress that breaks the rock? As you’re aware, Plate Tectonics exist, and the
boundaries between plates are the most common sources for earthquakes.
There are three plate boundaries associated with Plate Tectonics:
o Divergent Boundaries
New crust forming at centre
Extensional stress, with each side pulling apart
Earthquakes often occur close to the surface and are low magnitude
Low explosivity volcanism, instead lava ‘flows’ out non-violently
o Convergent Boundaries
Oceanic (heavy) crust sinks below Continental (light) crust
Friction causes earthquakes from surface to more than 300km deep
Compressional stress, often high magnitude and associated volcanoes
o Transform Boundaries
Crust moves in opposite directions, causing shearing friction
Best example is San Andreas Fault in California, causing nearly all
earthquakes
We will learn more about these boundaries in later chapters when we look
at catastrophic earthquakes in California
Prediction must define:
o Location of event
o Time expected
o Magnitude that is probable
Precursors:
o Foreshocks: some weaker rocks break before the rest and cause mini earthquakes
o Animals start acting weird before earthquakes so can use that to predict EQ
Coming
o Water wells:
Changing water levels (water fills micro fractures)
Radon gas from uranium decay fills water wells
Earthquake forecasting
Forecasting earthquakes is one of the hardest jobs a Geoscientist can have. Sometimes,
strange behaviour by animals or smaller foreshocks can indicate an earthquake is
imminent – though most often earthquakes are essentially randomly-occurring, in that
predicting when an earthquake will happen is nearly impossible.
Can predict which segments of faults will break after studying plate motions
o If there’s a large EQ on segment before, can forecast the next one
Only good for well understood faults
We can estimate the probability of an EQ happening by studying history of EQs in an
area and checking the rate at which stress accumulates
The amount of rocks that break at once determine how big the EQ is
Earthquakes, when measured, have two features associated: Location and Magnitude
o Based on the Location, we can determine which settlements are at risk of violent
earthquake shaking, what fault the earthquake occurred on, and whether other
damaging effects like mudslides or tsunamis may occur
1. Based on the Magnitude, we can determine how much energy was released by
the earthquake, how much damage we can expect, how far the shaking reaches,
and how violent the shaking from the earthquake is expected to be.
2. gggg
Magnitude is probably the most defining feature of an earthquake,
although many different ways of measuring magnitude have been made up
over the years. Currently, we try to always use Moment Magnitude, the
standard in seismology.
The Moment Magnitude (MW) scale is a logarithmic scale, meaning that
each step in the scale is 10x greater (but not in a linear scale) than the last.
Earthquake Forecasters use three main criteria for defining an effective prediction:
1. Geographic location of the event
2. Amount of time the earthquake produces strong shaking
3. Probable magnitude
I say nearly impossible… But you could always use earthquake frequencies and historical
patterns to predict earthquakes! In Canada, there are two main seismic zones
o Pacific Seismic Zone: the western margin of North America follows a Convergent
Plate Boundary, causing minor volcanism and major seismicity
o Charlevoix Seismic Zone: along the St. Lawrence River in QC, a cluster of
earthquakes occur around Charlevoix (the site of a Meteor Impact that disturbed
the plate’s stability)