Incredible facts
1. The largest earthquake reached magnitude 9.5 in Chile in 1960. It caused a giant tsunami that extended over 10,000 km.
8. Everest's height decreased by 2.5 cm after the 2015 earthquake that occurred in Nepal.
9. In 132 AD Chinese inventor created seismograph, which at the time of the earthquake threw a copper ball into the mouth of the dragon and the mouth of the frog.
10. About 500,000 detectable earthquakes occur each year. About 100,000 of them can be felt and 100 of them cause some kind of damage.
11. Average earthquake lasts about 1 minute.
12. Tremors can occur after a few years after the main earthquake.
Earthquake map
13. About 80 percent of major earthquakes on Earth occur near the "Ring of Fire"- Horseshoe-shaped areas in the Pacific Ocean where many tectonic plates occur.
The second most powerful earthquake area is called " Mediterranean fold belt", which includes countries such as Türkiye, India and Pakistan.
14. An earthquake in 1201 in the eastern Mediterranean became deadliest in history, which killed more than 1 million people.
15. Scientists believe that animals can feel weak tremors before an earthquake. Perhaps animals sense electrical signals arising from underground shifts.
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
16. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake lasted almost 10 minutes - this longest earthquake.
17. An earthquake can release energy hundreds of times greater than the energy released when the nuclear bomb fell in Hiroshima in 1945.
18. Before an earthquake, an unusual smell may appear in reservoirs and canals. This is caused by the release of underground gases. Groundwater temperatures may also increase.
19. An earthquake on the moon is called " moonquake"Moonquakes are usually weaker than earthquakes.
20. Earthquakes are usually caused by geological disturbances, but they can also be caused by landslides, nuclear weapons testing and volcanic activity.
Strongest earthquakes (since 1900)
1. Great Chilean earthquake, 1960
Epicenter - Valdivia, Chile
magnitude - 9.5
2. Great Alaska Earthquake, 1964
epicenter - Prince William Sound
magnitude – 9.2
3. Indian Ocean earthquake, 2004
Epicenter – Sumatra, Indonesia
magnitude – 9.1
4. Sendai earthquake, 2011
Epicenter – Sendai, Japan
magnitude – 9.0
5. Earthquake and tsunami in Severo-Kurilsk, 1952
Epicenter – Kamchatka, Russia
Magnitude - 8.5-9.0
The power of tremors is estimated by the amplitude of oscillations of the earth's crust from 1 to 10 points. Areas in mountainous areas are considered the most earthquake-prone. We present to you the most powerful earthquakes in history.
The worst earthquakes in history
During the earthquake that occurred in Syria in 1202, more than a million people died. Despite the fact that the force of the tremors did not exceed 7.5 points, underground vibrations were felt along the entire length from the island of Sicily in the Tyrrhenian Sea to Armenia.The large number of victims is associated not so much with the strength of the tremors, but with their duration. Modern researchers can judge the consequences of the destruction of the earthquake in the 2nd century only from the surviving chronicles, according to which the cities of Catania, Messina and Ragusa in Sicily were practically destroyed, and the coastal cities of Akratiri and Paralimni in Cyprus were also covered by a strong wave.
Earthquake on the island of Haiti
The 2010 Haiti earthquake killed more than 220,000 people, injured 300,000, and left more than 800,000 missing. Material damage as a result of the natural disaster amounted to 5.6 billion euros. For a whole hour, tremors with a power of 5 and 7 points were observed. 
Despite the fact that the earthquake occurred in 2010, Haitians still need humanitarian assistance and are also rebuilding settlements on their own. This is the second most powerful earthquake in Haiti, the first occurred in 1751 - then the cities had to be rebuilt over the next 15 years.
Earthquake in China
About 830 thousand people died in the magnitude 8 earthquake in China in 1556. At the very epicenter of the tremors in the Weihe River valley, near Shaanxi province, 60% of the population died. The huge number of victims is due to the fact that people in the middle of the 16th century lived in limestone caves, which were easily destroyed even by minor tremors. 
Within 6 months after the main earthquake, so-called aftershocks were repeatedly felt - repeated seismic tremors with a power of 1-2 points. This disaster occurred during the reign of Emperor Jiajing, so it is called the Great Jiajing Earthquake in Chinese history.
The most powerful earthquakes in Russia
Almost a fifth of Russia's territory is located in seismically active areas. These include the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin, Kamchatka, the North Caucasus and the Black Sea coast, Baikal, Altai and Tyva, Yakutia and the Urals. Over the past 25 years, about 30 strong earthquakes with an amplitude of more than 7 points have been recorded in the country. 
Earthquake on Sakhalin
In 1995, an earthquake of magnitude 7.6 occurred on Sakhalin Island, as a result of which the cities of Okha and Neftegorsk, as well as several villages located nearby, were damaged. 
The most significant consequences were felt in Neftegorsk, which was 30 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake. Within 17 seconds, almost all houses were destroyed. The damage caused amounted to 2 trillion rubles, and the authorities decided not to restore the settlements, so this city is no longer indicated on the map of Russia.
More than 1,500 rescuers were involved in eliminating the consequences. 2,040 people died under the rubble. A chapel was built and a memorial was erected on the site of Neftegorsk.
Earthquake in Japan
The movement of the earth's crust is often observed in Japan, since it is located in the active zone of the Pacific Ocean volcanic ring. The most powerful earthquake in this country occurred in 2011, the amplitude of the vibrations was 9 points. According to a rough estimate of experts, the amount of damage after the destruction reached 309 billion dollars. More than 15 thousand people were killed, 6 thousand were injured and about 2,500 were missing. 
Tremors in the Pacific Ocean caused a powerful tsunami, the height of the waves was 10 meters. As a result of the collapse of a large flow of water on the coast of Japan, a radiation accident occurred at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant. Subsequently, for several months, residents of nearby areas were prohibited from drinking tap water due to its high cesium content.
In addition, the Japanese government ordered TEPCO, which owns the nuclear power plant, to compensate moral damages to 80 thousand residents forced to leave the contaminated areas.
The most powerful earthquake in the world
A powerful earthquake caused by the collision of two continental plates occurred in India on August 15, 1950. According to official data, the strength of the tremors reached 10 points. However, according to the conclusions of the researchers, the vibrations of the earth's crust were much stronger, and the instruments were unable to establish their exact magnitude. 
The strongest tremors were felt in the state of Assam, which was reduced to ruins as a result of the earthquake - more than two thousand houses were destroyed and more than six thousand people were killed. The total area of the territories caught in the destruction zone was 390 thousand square kilometers.
According to the site, earthquakes also often occur in volcanically active areas. We present to you an article about the highest volcanoes in the world.
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The greenhouse effect has tripped
Vladimir Erashov
In recent decades, the greenhouse effect has become the talk of the town; it is blamed for the increase in all earthly disasters. But here's a sensational surprise - THE GROWTH OF THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT AND THE NUMBER OF EARTHQUAKES COINCIDED ONLY UNTIL 2005, THEN THE PATH diverged, THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT CONTINUED TO GROW, WHILE THE NUMBER OF EARTHQUAKES STARTED TO DROP SHARPLY. Moreover, the statistics of earthquakes are as follows, we will present them below, which does not leave the slightest doubt about the presence of the indicated trends. The number of earthquakes on Earth increased significantly until 2005, and then began to decrease significantly. Earthquakes in modern times are recorded by many tracking stations with great accuracy and very scrupulously. From this side, any error is excluded in principle. Consequently, the indicated trend is an indisputable fact, a fact that allows us to look at the problem of climate warming in a very unconventional way.
First, we present earthquake statistics; these statistics were obtained after processing (summing up) the daily number of earthquakes stored in the archive of the site http://www.moveinfo.ru/data/earth/earthquake/select
Let us clarify that the site stores earthquakes of magnitude four and above, starting in 1974. It has not yet been possible to process all the statistics, it is very labor-intensive, we present statistics for January earthquakes; for other months the picture is similar.
Here are the statistics:
1974 -313, 1975-333, 1976 -539, 1977 – 323, 1978 – 329, 1979 – 325, 1980 – 390, 1981 -367, 1982- 405, 1983 – 507, 1984 – 391, 1985 – 447, 1986 – 496, 1987 – 466, 1988 – 490, 1989 – 490, 1990 – 437, 1991 – 516, 1992 – 465, 1993 – 477, 1994 – 460, 1995 – 709. 1996 – 865, 1997 – 647, 1998 – 747, 1999 – 666, 2000 – 615, 2001 – 692, 2002 – 815, 2003 – 691, 2004 – 915, 2005 – 2127, 2006 – 971, 2007 – 1390, 2008 – 1040, 2009 – 989, 2010 – 823, 2011 – 1211, 2012 – 999, 2013 – 687, 2014 – 468, 2015 – 479, 2016 – 499.
And so in 2005 there was a radical change in the number of recorded earthquakes; if before 2005 the number of earthquakes, albeit with minor stops, only grew, then after 2005 it began to steadily decline.
Main conclusion:
The catastrophic increase in the number of earthquakes that occurred on Earth before 2005 is in no way connected with the greenhouse effect; it occurred for other reasons, these reasons remain to be clarified.
An interesting fact is that in 2005, in parallel with the increase in the number of earthquakes, a radical change occurred in the speed of the Earth’s rotation; the Earth began to slow down its rotation. Now it is still impossible to say unequivocally that these facts are connected with each other, but it is also very unlikely that they coincided by chance. Moreover, short-term surges in the number of earthquakes correlate very well with surges in the Earth’s rotation speed.
From the works of scientist Sidorenkov N.S. It is known that the speed of rotation of the Earth has a very good correlation with the temperature on the Planet; a higher speed of rotation of the Earth also corresponds to a higher average temperature - this has been established experimentally over a fairly long period of observations. Then a completely logical question:
Will a decrease in the Earth's rotation speed be followed not only by a decrease in the number of earthquakes, which has already followed, but also by a decrease in average temperature, that is, do not these factors signal us about the beginning of an era of cooling?
Apparently it is too early to put an end to this issue, but Russian science has no right to leave this issue without attention, the stakes are painfully high. Of course, no scientist will cancel the future cooling of the climate, which may be about to begin, but this cooling should not fall on Russia out of the blue.
In this regard, I ask readers not to be lazy, but also re-read the article “Transparent Climate”.
Isn't it time for Russian science to wake up?
24.05. 2016
1. Where and why earthquakes occur
2. Seismic waves and their measurement
3. Measuring the strength and impacts of earthquakes
Magnitude scale
Intensity scales
Medvedev-Sponheuer-Karnik scale (MSK-64)
4. What happens during strong earthquakes
5. Causes of earthquakes
6. Other types of earthquakes
Volcanic earthquakes
Technogenic earthquakes
Landslide earthquakes
Earthquakes of artificial nature
7. The most destructive earthquakes
8. About earthquake forecasting
9. Types of environmental consequences and earthquakes and their characteristics
Earthquakes — This tremors and vibrations of the Earth's surface caused by natural causes (mainly tectonic processes) or artificial processes(explosions, filling of reservoirs, collapse of underground cavities in mine workings). Small tremors can also cause lava to rise during volcanic eruptions.
Where and why do earthquakes occur?
About a million earthquakes occur throughout the Earth each year, but most are so small that they go unnoticed. Really strong earthquakes, capable of causing widespread destruction, occur on the planet about once every two weeks. Fortunately, most of them occur on the bottom of the oceans, and therefore are not accompanied by catastrophic consequences (if an earthquake under the ocean does not occur without a tsunami).
Earthquakes are best known for the devastation they can cause. Destructions of buildings and structures are caused by soil vibrations or giant tidal waves (tsunamis) that occur during seismic displacements on the seabed.
The International Earthquake Observation Network records even the most distant and low-magnitude earthquakes.
The cause of an earthquake is the rapid displacement of a section of the earth's crust as a whole at the moment of plastic (brittle) deformation of elastically stressed rocks at the source of the earthquake. Most earthquakes occur near the Earth's surface.
Physicochemical processes occurring inside the Earth cause changes in the physical state of the Earth, volume and other properties of matter. This leads to the accumulation of elastic stresses in any area of the globe. When elastic stresses exceed the strength limit of the substance, large masses of earth will rupture and move, which will be accompanied by strong shaking. This is what causes the Earth to shake - an earthquake.
An earthquake is also usually called any vibration of the earth's surface and subsoil, no matter what reasons it is caused - endogenous or anthropogenic, and no matter what its intensity.
Earthquakes do not occur everywhere on Earth. They are concentrated in relatively narrow belts, confined mainly to high mountains or deep oceanic trenches. The first of them - the Pacific - frames the Pacific Ocean;
the second - Mediterranean Trans-Asian - extends from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean through the Mediterranean basin, the Himalayas, East Asia all the way to the Pacific Ocean; finally, the Atlantic-Arctic belt covers the mid-Atlantic underwater ridge, Iceland, Jan Mayen Island and the underwater Lomonosov Ridge in the Arctic, etc.
Earthquakes also occur in the area of African and Asian depressions, such as the Red Sea, lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa in Africa, Issyk-Kul and Baikal in Asia.
The fact is that the highest mountains or deep oceanic trenches on a geological scale are young formations located in process formation. The earth's crust in such areas is mobile. The overwhelming majority of earthquakes are associated with mountain building processes. Such earthquakes are called tectonic. Scientists have compiled a special map that shows how powerful earthquakes are or can be in different areas of our country: in the Carpathians, Crimea, the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, in the Pamir Mountains, Kopet-Dag, Tien Shan, Western and Eastern Siberia , Baikal region, Kamchatka, Kuril Islands and Arctic.
There are also volcanic earthquakes. Lava and hot gases seething in the depths of volcanoes press on the upper layers of the Earth, like steam from boiling water on the lid of a kettle. Volcanic earthquakes are quite weak, but last a long time: weeks and even months. There have been cases when they occur before volcanic eruptions and serve as harbingers of disaster.
Ground shaking can also be caused by landslides and large landslides. These are local landslide earthquakes.
As a rule, strong earthquakes are accompanied by aftershocks, the power of which gradually decreases.
Tectonic earthquakes occur ruptures or the movement of rocks at some place deep in the Earth, called the earthquake focus or hypocenter. Its depth usually reaches several tens of kilometers, and in some cases hundreds of kilometers. The area of the Earth located above the source, where the force of tremors reaches its greatest magnitude, is called the epicenter.
Sometimes disturbances in the earth's crust - cracks, faults - reach the surface of the Earth. In such cases, bridges, roads, and structures are torn apart and destroyed. During the California earthquake in 1906, a crack 450 km long formed. Sections of the road near the crack shifted by 5-6 m. During the Gobi earthquake (Mongolia) on December 4, 1957, cracks appeared with a total length of 250 km. Along them, ledges of up to 10 m have formed. It happens that after an earthquake, large areas of land sink and are filled with water, and in places where ledges cross rivers, waterfalls appear.
In May 1960, several very strong and many weak earthquakes occurred on the Pacific coast of South America, in the Republic of Chile. The strongest of them, at 11-12 points, was observed on May 22: within 1-10 seconds, a colossal amount of energy hidden in subsoil Earth. The Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Plant could generate such a reserve of energy only in many years.
The earthquake caused severe destruction over a large area. More than half of the provinces were affected Republic of Chile, at least 10 thousand people died, and more than 2 million were left homeless. Destruction covered the Pacific coast for more than 1000 km. Large cities were destroyed - Valdivia, Puerto Montt, etc. As a result of the Chilean earthquakes, fourteen volcanoes began to operate.
When the source of an earthquake is under the seabed, huge waves can arise in the sea - tsunamis, which sometimes cause more destruction than the earthquake itself. The waves caused by the Chilean earthquake on May 22, 1960, spread across the Pacific Ocean and reached its opposite shores a day later. In Japan, their height reached 10 m. The coastal strip was flooded. The ships located off the coast were thrown onto land, and some of the buildings were carried away into the ocean.
A major disaster that befell humanity also occurred on March 28, 1964, off the coast of the Alaska Peninsula. This powerful earthquake destroyed the city of Anchorage, located 100 km from the epicenter of the earthquake. The soil was plowed up by a series of explosions and landslides. Large ruptures and the movement of blocks of the earth's crust of the bay bottom along them caused huge sea waves, reaching 9-10 m in height off the US coast. These waves traveled at the speed of a jet plane along the coast of Canada and USA, sweeping away everything in its path.
How often do earthquakes occur on Earth? Modern precision instruments record more than 100 thousand earthquakes annually. But people feel about 10 thousand earthquakes. Of these, approximately 100 are destructive.
It turns out that relatively weak earthquakes emit the energy of elastic vibrations equal to 1012 erg, and the strongest ones - up to 10" erg. With such a large range, it is practically more convenient to use not the magnitude of the energy, but its logarithm. This is the basis for a scale in which the energy level of the weakest earthquake (1012 erg) is taken as zero, and one that is approximately 100 times stronger corresponds to one; another 100 times greater (10,000 times greater in energy than zero) corresponds to two scale units, etc. The number on such a scale is called the magnitude of the earthquake and is denoted by the letter M.
Thus, the magnitude of an earthquake characterizes the amount of elastic vibration energy released in all directions by the earthquake source. This value does not depend either on the depth of the source under the earth's surface or on the distance to the observation point. For example, the magnitude (M) of the Chilean earthquake on May 22, 1960 is close to 8.5, and the Tashkent earthquake on April 26, 1966 - to 5 ,3.
The scale of an earthquake and the degree of its impact on people and the natural environment (as well as on man-made structures) can be determined by various indicators, namely: the amount of energy released at the source - magnitude, the strength of vibrations and their effects on the surface - intensity in points, accelerations, amplitude fluctuations, as well as damage - social (human losses) and material (economic losses).
The maximum recorded magnitude reached M-8.9. Naturally, high-amplitude earthquakes occur very rarely, unlike medium- and low-magnitude ones. The average frequency of earthquakes on the globe is:
The strength of the shaking, or the strength of the earthquake on the earth's surface, is determined by points. The most common is the 12-point scale. The transition from non-destructive to destructive shocks corresponds to 7 points.
The strength of an earthquake on the Earth's surface depends to a greater extent on the depth of the source: the closer the source is to the Earth's surface, the greater the strength of the earthquake at the epicenter. Thus, the Yugoslav earthquake in Skopje on July 26, 1963, with a magnitude three to four units less than that of the Chilean earthquake (the energy is hundreds of thousands of times less), but with a shallow source depth caused catastrophic consequences. In the city, 1000 residents were killed and more than 1/2 of the buildings were destroyed. Destruction on the Earth's surface depends, in addition to the energy released during an earthquake and the depth of the source, on the quality of the soil. The greatest destruction occurs on loose, damp and unstable soils. The quality of ground-based buildings also matters.
Seismic waves and their measurement
20% of the territory of Russia belongs to seismically active areas (including 5% of the territory is subject to extremely dangerous 8-10 magnitude earthquakes).
Over the past quarter century, about 30 significant earthquakes, that is, with a magnitude of more than seven on the Richter scale, have occurred in Russia. 20 million people live in zones of possible destructive earthquakes in Russia.
Residents of the Far Eastern region of Russia suffer the most from earthquakes and tsunamis. The Pacific coast of Russia is located in one of the “hottest” zones of the “Ring of Fire”. Here, in the area of transition from the Asian continent to the Pacific Ocean and the junction of the Kuril-Kamchatka and Aleutian island volcanic arcs, more than a third of Russia’s earthquakes occur; there are 30 active volcanoes, including such giants as Klyuchevskaya Sopka and Shiveluch. It has the highest density of distribution of active volcanoes on Earth: for every 20 km of coastline there is one volcano. Earthquakes occur here no less often than in Japan or Chile. Seismologists usually count at least 300 significant earthquakes per year. On the seismic zoning map of Russia, the areas of Kamchatka, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands belong to the so-called eight- and nine-point zone. This means that in these areas the intensity of shaking can reach 8 and even 9 points. Destruction may also result. The most destructive earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale occurred on Sakhalin Island on May 27, 1995. About 3 thousand people died, the city of Neftegorsk, located 30 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake, was almost completely destroyed.
Seismically active regions of Russia also include Eastern Siberia, where 7-9 point zones are distinguished in the Baikal region, Irkutsk region and the Buryat Republic.
Yakutia, through which the boundary of the Euro-Asian and North American plates passes, is not only considered a seismically active region, but is also a record holder: earthquakes with epicenters north of 70° N often occur here. As seismologists know, the bulk of earthquakes on Earth occur near the equator and in mid-latitudes, and in high latitudes such events are recorded extremely rarely. For example, on the Kola Peninsula, many different traces of high-power earthquakes have been discovered - mostly quite old. The forms of seismogenic relief discovered on the Kola Peninsula are similar to those observed in earthquake zones with an intensity of 9-10 points.
Other seismically active regions of Russia include the Caucasus, spurs of the Carpathians, and the coasts of the Black and Caspian Seas. These areas are characterized by earthquakes with a magnitude of 4-5. However, during the historical period, catastrophic earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 8.0 were also recorded here. Traces of a tsunami were also found on the Black Sea coast.
However, earthquakes can also occur in areas that cannot be called seismically active. On September 21, 2004, two series of tremors with a force of 4-5 points were recorded in Kaliningrad. The epicenter of the earthquake was 40 kilometers southeast of Kaliningrad near the Russian-Polish border. According to maps of general seismic zoning of the territory of Russia, the Kaliningrad region belongs to a seismically safe area. Here the probability of exceeding the intensity of such tremors is about 1% within 50 years.
Even residents of Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities located on the Russian Platform have reason to worry. On the territory of Moscow and the Moscow region, the last of these seismic events with a force of 3-4 points took place on March 4, 1977, on the nights of August 30-31, 1986 and May 5, 1990. The strongest known seismic tremors in Moscow, with an intensity of over 4 points, were observed on October 4, 1802 and November 10, 1940. These were “echoes” of larger earthquakes in the Eastern Carpathians.