Where do Earthquakes come from?
An Earthquake
is the creation of two blocks of the earth's crust suddenly slipping past one
another (a tectonic shift). The surface where the tectonic plates meet
and slip is called the fault or fault plane, while a hypocenter is the
center of the earthquake, below the surface. The most intense part of earthquakes
is called the mainshock, which is always followed by aftershocks. Aftershocks, depending on the mainshock's
size and intensity, can go on for years after the mainshock has occurred! Our experiment was based on the earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011 off the coast of Honshu, Japan. It was a 6.9 magnitude earthquake with its hypocenter at the coordinate location of 38.297 N, 142.372 E. There were around 600+ aftershocks hitting the area around the earthquake, 3 being over a 7.0 magnitude. There were also many damages along the coast due to the tsunami.