WA Earthquake Hazards

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GLOSSARY

taken from "Washington State Earthquake Hazards", by Linda Noson, Anthony Q amar, and Gerald Thorsen

This glossary includes words commonly used to describe the nature of earthquakes, how they occur, and their effects, as well as a discussion of the instruments used to record earthquake motion. Each word or phrase that is in bold print in the text is explained in this glossary.

Accelerograph: A seismograph whose output is proportional to ground acceleration (in comparison to the usual seismograph whose output is proportional to ground velocity). Accelerographs are typically used as instruments designed to record very strong ground motion useful in engineering design; seismographs commonly record off scale in these circumstances. Normally, strong motion instruments do not record unless triggered by strong ground motion.
Aftershock: One of many earthquakes that often occur during the days to months after some larger earthquake (mainshock) has occurred. Aftershocks occur in the same general region as the mainshock and are believed to be the result of minor readjustments of stress at places in the fault zone.
Amplitude: The amplitude of a seismic wave is the amount the ground moves as the wave passes by. (As an illustration, the amplitude of an ocean wave is one-half the distance between the peak and trough of the wave. The amplitude of a seismic wave can be measured from the signal recorded on a seismogram.)
Aseismic creep: Movement along a fracture in the Earth that occurs without causing earthquakes. This movement is so slow that it is not recorded by ordinary seismographs.
Collision: A term sometimes applied to the convergence of two plates in which neither plate subducts. Instead, the edges of the plates crumple and are severely deformed.
Convection: The motion of a liquid driven by gravity and temperature differences in the material. In the Earth, where pressure and temperature are high, rocks can act like viscous fluids on a time scale of millions of years. Thus, scientists believe that convection is an important process in the rocks that make up the Earth.
Convergent boundary: The boundary between two plates that approach one another. The convergence may result in subduction if one plate yields by diving deep into the Earth, obduction if one plate is thrust over the other, or collision if the plates simply ram into each other and are deformed.
Core: The Earth's central region, believed to be composed mostly of iron. The core has a radius of 3,477 kilometers and is surrounded by the Earth's mantle. At the center of the molten outer core is a solid inner core with a radius of 1,213 kilometers.; (See Figure 9.)
Earthquake: The release of stored clastic energy caused by sudden fracture and movement of rocks inside the Earth. Part of the energy released produces seismic waves, like P, S, and surface waves, that travel outward in all directions from the point of initial rupture. These waves shake the ground as they pass by. An earthquake is felt if the shaking is strong enough to cause ground accelerations exceeding approximately 1.0 centimeter/second' (Richter, 1958).
Epicenter: The location on the surface of the Earth directly above the focus, or place where an earthquake originates. An earthquake caused by a fault that offsets features on the Earth's surface may have an epicenter that does not lie on the trace of that fault on the surface. This occurs if the fault plane is not vertical and the earthquake occurs below the Earth's surface.
Fault: A break in the Earth along which movement occurs. Sudden movement along a fault produces earthquakes. Slow movement produces aseismic creep.
Fault plane solution: The calculation of the orientation, dip, and slip direction of a fault that produced the ground motion recorded at seismograph stations. Sometimes called a focal mechanism solution.
Focus: The place in the Earth where rock first breaks or slips at the time of an earthquake; also called the hypocenter. The focus is a single point on the surface of a ruptured fault. During a great earthquake, which might rupture a fault for hundreds of kilometers, one could be standing on the rupturing fault, yet be hundreds of kilometers from the focus.
Hypocenter
: See Focus.
Intensity: A measure of the severity of shaking at a particular site. It is usually estimated from descriptions of damage to buildings and terrain. The intensity is often greatest near the earthquake epicenter. Today, the Modified Mercalli Scale is commonly used to rank the intensity from I to XII according to the kind and amount of damage produced. Before 1931 earthquake intensifies were often reported using the Rossi-Forel scale (Richter, 1958).
Kilometers and other metric units of measure:
Conversion formulae: Millimeters x 0.039 = inches
Centimeters x 0.394 = inches
Meters x 3.28 = feet
Kilometers x 0.621 = statute miles
Square kilometers x 0.386 = square miles
Cubic kilometers x 0.240 = cubic miles
Liquifaction: A process, in which, during ground shaking, some sandy, water-saturated soils can behave like liquids rather than solids.
Magnitude
: A quantity characteristic of the total energy released by an earthquake, as contrasted with intensity, which describes its effects at a particular place. A number of earthquake magnitude scales exist, including local (or Richter) magnitude (ML), body wave magnitude (Mb), surface wave magnitude (Ms), moment magnitude (Mw), and coda magnitude (Mc). As a general rule, an increase of one magnitude unit corresponds to ten times greater ground motion, an increase of two magnitude units corresponds to 100 times greater ground motion, and so on in a logarithmic series. Commonly, earthquakes are recorded with magnitudes from 0 to 8, although occasionally large ones (M = 9) and very small ones (M = -I or -2) are also recorded. Nearby earthquakes with magnitudes as small as 2 to 3 are frequently felt. The actual ground motion for, say, a magnitude 5 earthquake is about 0.04 millimeters at a distance of 100 kilometers from the epicenter; it is 1.1 millimeters at a distance of 10 kilometers from the epicenter.
Mainshock: The largest in a series of earthquakes occurring closely in time and space. The mainshock may be preceded by foreshocks or followed by aftershocks.
Mantle: A rock layer, about 2,894 kilometers thick, between the Earth's crust and core. Like the crust, the upper part of the mantle is relatively brittle. Together, the upper brittle part of the mantle and the crust form tectonic plates.
Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale: A scale for measuring ground shaking at a site, and whose values range from I (not felt) to XII (extreme damage to buildings and land surfaces).
NEHRP: The federal National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program, enacted in 1977, to reduce potential losses from earthquakes by funding research in earthquake prediction and hazards and to guide the implementation of earthquake loss reduction programs.
Normal Fault: A normal fault can result from vertical motion of two adjacent blocks under horizontal tension. (It also occurs in rocks under compression if stress is unequal in different directions. In this case, the minimum and maximum compressive stresses must be applied horizontally and vertically respectively.) In a normal fault, the upper of the two adjacent blocks of rock slips relatively downward.
P (Primary) waves: Also called compressional or longitudinal waves, P waves are the fastest seismic waves produced by an earthquake. (See seismic waves and Figure 2.) They oscillate the ground back and forth along the direction of wave travel, in much the same way as sound waves, which are also compressional, move the air back and forth as the waves travel from the sound source to a sound receiver.
Plates: Pieces of crust and brittle uppermost mantle, perhaps 100 kilometers thick and hundreds or thousands of kilometers wide, that cover the Earth's surface. The plates move very slowly over, or possibly with, a viscous layer in the mantle at rates of a few centimeters per year.
Plate boundaries: The edges of plates or the junction between plates. See also plates, convergent (both collision and subduction), spreading, and transform boundaries.
Plate tectonics: A widely accepted theory that relates most of the geologic features near the Earth's surface to the movement and interaction of relatively thin rock plates. The theory predicts that most earthquakes occur when plates move past each other.
Return times: Sometimes called the recurrence time or recurrence interval. The return time, or more properly the average return time, of an earthquake is the number of years between occurrences of an earthquake of a given magnitude in a particular area. For example, if the average time of an earthquake having magnitude greater than or equal to 7 is 100 years, then, on the average, such earthquakes will occur every 100 years. If such earthquakes occur randomly in time, there is always the chance that the actual time interval between the events will be less or greater than 100 years. Return time is best described in terms of probabilities. In the case of an earthquake having a 100-year average return time, there is about an 18 percent chance that such an earthquake will occur in the next 20 years and a 63 percent chance than it will occur in the next 100 years. On the other hand, there is a 14 percent chance that it will not occur in the next 200 years.
Reverse Fault: A rupture that results from vertical motion of two adjacent blocks caused by horizontal compression. Sometimes called a thrust fault. In a reverse fault, the upper of the two adjacent blocks moves relatively upward.
Richter Magnigtude Scale: An earthquake magnitude scale, more properly called local magnitude scale, based on measurements of the amplitude of earthquake waves recorded on a standard Wood-Anderson type seismograph at a distance of less than 600 kilometers from the epicenter (Richter, 1958).
S (Secondary or shear) waves: S waves oscillate the ground perpendicular to the direction of wave travel. They travel about 1.7 times slower than P waves. Because liquids will not sustain shear stresses, S waves will not travel through liquids like water, molten rock, or the Earth's outer core.
Seiche: A standing wave in a closed body of water such as a lake or bay. It can be characterized as the sloshing of water in the enclosing basin. Seiches can be produced by seismic waves from earthquakes. The permanent tilting of lake basins caused by nearby fault motions has produced very energetic seiches.
Seismic waves: A vibrational disturbance in the Earth that travels at speeds of several kilometers per second. There are three main types of seismic waves in the earth: P (fastest), S (slower), and surface waves (slowest). Seismic waves are produced by earthquakes.
Seismogram: A graph showing the motion of the ground versus time.
Seismograph: A sensitive instrument that can detect, amplify, and record ground vibrations too small to be perceived by human beings.
Site response: Local vibratory response to seismic waves. Some sites experience more or less violent shaking than others, depending on factors such as the nature and thickness of unconsolidated sediments and/or the configuration of the underlying bedrock.
Strike-slip fault: Horizontal motion of one block relative to another along a fault plane. If one stands on one side of the fault and observes that an object on the other side moves to the right during an earthquake, the fault is called a right-lateral strike-slip fault (like California's San Andreas fault). If the object moves to the left, the fault is called a left-lateral strike-slip fault.
Subduction zone boundary: The region between converging plates, one of which dives beneath the other. The Cascadia subduction zone boundary ( Figure 12 ) is an example.
Subduction earthquake: A thrust-type earthquake caused by slip between converging plates in a subduction zone. Such earthquakes usually occur on the shallow part of the boundary and can exceed magnitude 8.
Surface waves: Seismic waves, slower than P or S waves, that propagate along the Earth's surface rather than through the deep interior. Two principal types of surface waves, Love and Rayleigh waves, are generated during an earthquake. Rayleigh waves cause both vertical and horizontal ground motion, and Love waves cause horizontal motion only. They both produce ground shaking at the Earth's surface but very little motion deep in the Earth. Because the amplitude of surface waves diminishes less rapidly with distance than the amplitude of P or S waves, surface waves are often the most important component of ground shaking far from the earthquake source.
Thrust fault: See reverse fault and Figure 1.
Transform boundary: A boundary between plates where the relative motion is horizontal. The San Andreas fault is a transform boundary between the North America plate and the Pacific plate. The Blanco fracture zone ( Figure 12 ) is a transform boundary between the Juan de Fuca and the Pacific plates.
Tsunami: A tsunami is a series of very long wavelength ocean waves caused by the sudden displacement of water by earthquakes, landslides, or submarine slumps. Ordinarily, tsunamis are produced only by earthquakes exceeding magnitude 7.5. In the open ocean, tsunami waves travel at speeds of 600-800 kilometers/hour, but their wave heights are usually only a few centimeters. As they approach shallow water near a coast, tsunami waves travel more slowly, but their wave heights may increase to many meters, and thus they can become very destructive.
World-wide Standard Seismograph Network: A network of about 110 similarly calibrated seismograph stations that are distributed throughout the world. The network was originally established in the early 1960s, and its operation is now coordinated by the U.S. Geological Survey. Each station has six seismometers that measure vertical and horizontal ground motion in two frequency ranges.