Links for Webquest:
- Earthquakes for Kids
- Haiti Earthquake Pictures
- Volcanoes 101 Video
- Volcano Alerts & Updates
- Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius
- Mt. Vesuvius Victims Video
- Pompeii's Eyewitness Video
- One Year After Quake Slideshow (found at the bottom)
EARTHQUAKE FACTS
1. The largest recorded earthquake in the world was a magnitude 9.5 in Chile in 1960.
2. The largest recordedearthquake in the United States was a magnitude 9.2 that struck Alaska in 1964.
3. The world’s deadliest recorded earthquake occurred in 1556 in central China. It struck a region where most people lived in caves carved from soft rock. These dwellings collapsed during the earthquake, killing an estimated 830,000 people.
4. Moonquakes (“earthquakes” on the moon) do occur, but they happen less frequently and have smaller magnitudes than earthquakes on the Earth.
5. It is estimated that there are 500,000 detectable earthquakes in the world each year. 100,000 of those can be felt, and 100 of them cause damage.
6. Alaska is the most earthquake-prone state and one of the most seismically active regions in the world. Alaska experiences a magnitude 7 earthquake almost every year, and a magnitude 8 or greater earthquake on average every 14 years.
7. Each year the southern California area has about 10,000 earthquakes. Most of them are so small that they are not felt. Only several hundred are greater than magnitude 3.0, and only about 15-20 are greater than magnitude 4.0.
8. The average rate of motion across the San Andreas Fault Zone during the past 3 million years is 56 mm/yr (2 in/yr). This is about the same rate at which your fingernails grow. Assuming this rate continues, scientists project that Los Angeles and San Francisco will be adjacent to one another in approximately 15 million years.
9. Florida and North Dakota have the smallest number of earthquakes in the United States.
