Fault Slips And Earthquakes

Faults, Slips, and Earthquakes: OH MY! Natural disasters are just that, disasters. They can cause major damage to small areas, and even devastate entire continents. Most natural disasters can be predicted, but more often than not the degree of damage and devastation that they will cause is unknown until the time that they hit and change lives forever. These natural disasters come in the forms of tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Earthquakes are some of the most dangerous natural disasters and strike at a moments notice. How exactly do earthquakes happen, and what locations are prime real-estate areas for earthquakes to occur? Movies have provided the public with an over exaggerated view of earthquakes as the random, violent …show more content…
Most earthquakes occur along these sections because these are areas where the crust is being held together. There are three different types of fault slippage directions. The fault slippage directions are normal, reverse, and strike-slip faulting. Each type of fault has two sections, a footwall and a hanging wall. Normal faults occur due to tensional stress, or stress that pulls the hanging wall downward relative to the footwall. Reverse faults occur with the help of compressional stress, or stresses that “push” the hanging wall upward. The third type of fault, strike-slip faulting occurs when two sections slide horizontally and parallel to one another. When the two sections of Earth, the footwall and the hanging wall, slide relative to one another, and are separated along the fault, a great deal of what is know as elastic energy is released. The amount of elastic energy released is completely dependent upon on the size of the fault and the amount of slippage that occurs along the …show more content…
The energy is released in all directions north, south, east, west and everywhere in between. The energy, like a slinky toy being pulled and let go, continues until it is all dissipated, meaning the shaking of the ground does not stop and the ground is not calm again until all of the energy released from the slippage has dispersed. Areas closest to the focus, normally areas along the plate boundaries where faults are located, are the areas that experience the most and often the most deadly earthquakes. California, for example, has several major faults. The most famous and largest fault in California is the San Andreas Fault that runs mostly from northern to southern