An earthquake is the motion of the earth’s crust, which can be caused by transforming, diverging or converging plates. (1) Each type of boundary produces a certain earthquake depth, focus and epicenter. When two or more plates collide, rub, or separate, tension is being to build from this movement. As this tension builds, the rock will eventually reach a frictional peak where it will no longer be able to withstand the pressure and release’s it in the form of seismic waves. These waves are what make earthquakes so destructive. Generally, we devise these waves as either “primary” or “secondary” waves. The primary waves travel through all of the earth and the secondary wave’s travel through the solids of the earth but not liquids. These are the waves that scientist use to track earthquakes and study them. There is also something called a diverging plate boundary (2) where two plates are being separated by the convection zones in the earth’s mantle. These convection zones cause the mantle to circulate and apply tensional forces to plates. Usually diverging plate boundaries happen on the ocean floor. An example of this type of boundary is the Mid-Atlan

Oceanic- Oceanic Converging Boundary

tic Ridge. As the plates separate new crust in being formed from the uprising magma. As the magma rises, it causes what we know as sea floor spreading and a valley like crack is made at the divergent boundary. How does this relate to earthquakes? Well as the plates move apart normal faulting occurs along the ridge. This faulting eventually starts to build up tension and therefore the oceanic crust or continental plate will start to fracture and cause earthquakes. These earthquakes are relatively small in magnitude and intensity since the tension is built up all along the boundary and not necessarily at one particular spot. This in turn means that the frequency of these earthquakes is rather large, but since they are shallow and small, they do not cause extensive damage to people and/or land property. As well as earthquakes happening at ridges, they can happen at hot spots. The way this works is that on a certain part of a diverging plate the crust might experience a tensional force and the crust in return will get thinner and weaker. Magma will eventually break through the surface and form volcanos. If by chance a hot spot occurs under this weak part of the crust then the magma might provide the extra needed pressure to force the magma to the surface. This motion of the magma forcing itself to the surface will cause small earthquakes since it fractures the crust on its way up. Overall we can see that in diverging zones earthquakes tend to be frequent since the crust is constantly changing but because tension doesn’t build up for long and it gets dispersed along the boundary the magnitude of the earthquakes are relatively small. The relationship between the focus and epicenter at these points is that they are relatively close. This is because the quakes originate at the surface of the crust where the rifting and divergence is happening. An

Some topics in this essay:
Mid-Atlantic Ridge, , Plate Boundary, Mountains Asia, Volcano Islands, Converging Boundary, type boundary, plate boundary, focus epicenter, plate boundaries, earthquakes happen, sub duct, seismic waves, depth focus, diverging plate, sub ducts, example type boundary, type collision deals, converging plate boundary, sub ducts earthquakes, depth focus epicenter,