Explain what and earthquake is and how it is related to plate tectonics?
481699
The interactions between tectonic plates can cause earthquakes. Plate tectonics is the theory we use to explain how lithospheric or tectonic plates move. For example, two tectonic plates will build up stress (pressure) when their movement is impeded the eventual release of this stress causes an earthquake. There is more material available via Yahoo search. The second source link will help you get a good idea of the plate boundaries.
742010
Earthquakes: \nIt all comes down to stress and strain from the interaction of different plates, chiefly at the boundaries. It is not 'the plates rubbing together' as many people say; or at least that's a very simplistic view.\n\nPlate tectonics causes stress on the continents and oceans, all over the surface of the earth. In some places, the stress is very small (usually within the plates). Elsewhere, the stress is high, usually where the plates meet each other. Since each plate moves, when two come in contact, the stress each other. They can push on each other and cause compressional stress, they can pull with extensional stress, and they can slide past or shear each other with tensional stress.\n\nFaulting, causing earthquakes, comes from the fact that this stress is building up all the time, but rocks and continents are strong materials. Just like hitting a rock with a small hammer, you do put stress on it, but a small amount. It would take a sledgehammer to put enough strain (effects and accumulation of stress) to build up and cause breakage. In the earth, the area around an active fault builds up strain from the stress of plate tectonics. Most faults become locked, because of this strength, and thus can not release their strain. Away from the fault, the stress produces very small and slow movement of the rock masses as a whole. Eventually, the strain is too much and the rest of the plate has moved too far and the fault releases the strain build-up all at once in a big stress release called an earthquake. This is called the elastic rebound theory, and it explains most (but not all) movements.\n\nThis is why an earthquake's size is relative to the fault size. The bigger the fault, the bigger the strain build up, and the bigger the release in an earthquake. Subduction zones and collision zones, where large portions of plates actually can rub together as a whole, have the really big earthquakes, like the 2004 Sumatra earthquake. In other plate boundaries, the entire plate boundary does not act together, so the faults become spread out and many faults take up the strain from the tectonic stress, like with the San Andreas Fault in California (it only takes up ~3/4 of the stress between the plates).\n\nEarthquakes are really tricky things; there is still so much we need to learn. As of now, there is no way to predict them, but we can say where the danger is highest and about how long between events.
853741
Yes. \n\nThe earthquake starts when the two massive land masses on each side of the fault line break loose, as the Masses are trying to move and build up tremendous pressure in the fault (The actual crack between land Masses) builds and finally releases when the land Masses suddenly jolt apart causing an oscillation  resulting in an earthquake. \n\nGood question, \n\nDarryl S.
989327
Naturally occurring earthquakes\n\nMost naturally occurring earthquakes are related to the tectonic nature of the Earth. Such earthquakes are called tectonic earthquakes. The Earth's lithosphere is a patch work of plates (see plate tectonics) in slow but constant motion caused by the heat in the Earth's mantle and core. Plate boundaries glide past each other, creating frictional stress. When the frictional stress exceeds a critical value, called local strength, a sudden failure occurs. The boundary of tectonic plates along which failure occurs is called the fault plane. When the failure at the fault plane results in a violent displacement of the Earth's crust, the elastic strain energy is released and elastic waves are radiated, thus causing an earthquake. It is estimated that only 10 percent or less of an earthquake's total energy is ultimately radiated as seismic energy, while most of the earthquake's energy is used to power the earthquake fracture growth and is eventually converted into heat. Therefore, earthquakes lower the Earth's available potential energy and thermal energy, though these losses are negligible. To describe the physical process of occurrence of an earthquake, seismologists use the Elastic-rebound theory.\n\nThe majority of tectonic earthquakes originate at depths not exceeding a few tens of kilometers. Earthquakes occurring at boundaries of tectonic plates are called interplate earthquakes, while the less frequent events that occur in the interior of the lithospheric plates are called intraplate earthquakes.\n\nWhere the crust is thicker and colder, earthquakes occur at greater depths of hundreds of kilometers along subduction zones where plates descend into the Earth's mantle. These types of earthquakes are called deep focus earthquakes. They are possibly generated when subducted lithospheric material catastrophically undergoes a phase transition (e.g., olivine to spinel), releasing stored energy—such as elastic strain, chemical energy or gravitational energy—that cannot be supported at the pressures and temperatures present at such depths.\n\nEarthquakes may also occur in volcanic regions and are caused by the movement of magma in volcanoes. Such quakes can be an early warning of volcanic eruptions.\n\nA recently proposed theory suggests that some earthquakes may occur in a sort of earthquake storm, where one earthquake will trigger a series of earthquakes each triggered by the previous shifts on the fault lines, similar to aftershocks, but occurring years later, and with some of the later earthquakes as damaging as the early ones. Such a pattern was observed in the sequence of about a dozen earthquakes that struck the Anatolian Fault in Turkey in the 20th Century, the half dozen large earthquakes in New Madrid in 1811-1812, and has been inferred for older anomalous clusters of large earthquakes in the Middle East and in the Mojave Desert.\n\nInduced earthquakes\nSome earthquakes are the result of a number of anthropogenic sources, such as extraction of minerals and fossil fuel from the Earth's crust, the removal or injection of fluids into the crust, reservoir-induced seismicity, massive explosions, and collapse of large buildings. These seismic events caused by human activity are referred to by the term induced seismicity. They however are not strictly earthquakes and usually show a different seismogram than earthquakes that occur naturally.\n\nA rare few earthquakes have been associated with the build-up of large masses of water behind dams, such as the Kariba Dam in Zambia, Africa, and with the injection or extraction of fluids into the Earth's crust (e.g. at certain geothermal power plants and at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal). Such earthquakes occur because the strength of the Earth's crust can be modified by fluid pressure. Earthquakes have also been known to be caused by the removal of natural gas from subsurface deposits, for instance in the northern Net
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Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake#Size_and_frequency_of_occurrence for your answer.\n\nGood Luck!!!
421648
i think u mean tectonic plate.  tectonic plates are the sections the outer layer of earth is divided into.  there is pressure between the plates, so they sometimes slip and slide and that's how we get earthquakes.  tectonic plates are different sizes.  some only carry one island while others can have a whole continent and part of an ocean!  as for what platonic plates are, i've never heard of them, so i'm sure you mean tectonic plate.
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try using geophysics book as your reference.\np (primary) waves travel on solid, liquid and gas mediums.\nS (shear) waves travel only on solid mediums.\nA proof of this, is an occurrence of earthquakes, is which the quake produces seismic waves and the seismic centers can measure this waves and telling the magnitude of an earthquake.\nIf the earth is hollow, they (siesmologists) couldn't measure the magnitude of earthquakes.
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Plate tectonics is deeply connected with physics, and was discovered by geophysicists using techniques from physics.\n\nFor example:\n\n1. Fluid mechanics\n2. continuum mechanics\n3. electromagnetism\n4. newton's laws\n\nPlate tectonics was discovered by looking at stripes of magnetization on the sea floor. These are from the earth's field, which is caused by a dynamo, which is very complicated physics, involving electromagnetism and fluid mechanics. The plates move because of entrainment by moving fluids beneath. There is a lot of thermodynamics involved in the heat transfer and the cooling of the plates after they emerge from a midcean ridge; they contract as they cool. There is continuum mechanics involved in the deformation of the plates as they collide or get subducted. Islands on the plate surface can cause the plates to flex, and this is studied by continuum mechanics. One could make a very extensive list, that would probably include quantum mechanics, and even nuclear physics (which creates the heat that drives the plates), and only exclude quantum effects.
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The San Francisco 1906 earthquake occurred along the well-known San Andreas fault. The San Andreas fault is where two different blocks of the Earth's crust contact each other. Take a look at these websites for more information:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_San_Francisco_earthquake\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andreas_Fault
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The earth's hard surface (commonly called the crust) can be composed of oceanic crust or continental crust.  The two types of crust can form to create plates.  (Refer to plate tectonic theory)\n\nThe creation of the earth's crust can be a result of many processes such as: volcanism (Hawaii/Mt.St. Helens), Rift Zones (Mid-Atlantic Spreading Center), or combinations of the two.\n\nThe boundaries of these plates can convergent (come together), divergent (move apart), or transverse one another (slide past one another). \n\nOne of the most famous boundary between plates is the transverse or strike/slip fault that commonly creates earthquakes in California. The two famous faults are the San Andreas and Hayward faults.  \n\nEarthquakes are simply a build up of forces on these plate boundaries and eventually break.  The "break" is the earthquake  that we feel, the aftershocks can continue after the initial break, but are usually less intense or less strong (see Richter Scale)\n\nTsunamis are the result of deep earthquakes on/or near the ocean floor.  The movement of the fault will move massive amounts of the oceans water table is shifted. This forms a wave that will generate out in all directions.  When the tsunami travels thousands of miles thru the ocean and comes into contact with land it produces large scale waves (anywhere from 20-300+ feet) in height.
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In some areas of the world the tectonic plates press against each other with some amount of pressure. When the pressure grows too great, there is movement in one particular spot, which is then known as the epicenter. A small amount of movement is a small earthquake; a large amount equals a major earthquake.  It is a terrifying experience to be in a major earthquake -- that's why I moved away from Los Angeles.
945993
Earthquake, shaking of the Earth’s surface caused by rapid movement of the Earth’s rocky outer layer. Earthquakes occur when energy stored within the Earth, usually in the form of strain in rocks, suddenly releases. This energy is transmitted to the surface of the Earth by earthquake waves. The study of earthquakes and the waves they create is called seismology (from the Greek seismos, “to shake”). Scientists who study earthquakes are called seismologists.\n\nThe destruction an earthquake causes depends on its magnitude and duration, or the amount of shaking that occurs. A structure’s design and the materials used in its construction also affect the amount of damage the structure incurs. Earthquakes vary from small, imperceptible shaking to large shocks felt over thousands of kilometers. Earthquakes can deform the ground, make buildings and other structures collapse, and create tsunamis (large sea waves). Lives may be lost in the resulting destruction.\n\nEarthquakes, or seismic tremors, occur at a rate of several hundred per day around the world. A worldwide network of seismographs (machines that record movements of the Earth) detects about 1 million small earthquakes per year. Very large earthquakes, such as the 1964 Alaskan earthquake, which caused millions of dollars in damage, occur worldwide once every few years. Moderate earthquakes, such as the 1989 tremor in Loma Prieta, California, and the 1995 tremor in Kōbe, Japan, occur about 20 times a year. Moderate earthquakes also cause millions of dollars in damage and can harm many people.\n\nIn the last 500 years, several million people have been killed by earthquakes around the world, including over 240,000 in the 1976 T’ang-Shan, China, earthquake. Worldwide, earthquakes have also caused severe property and structural damage. Adequate precautions, such as education, emergency planning, and constructing stronger, more flexible, safely designed structures, can limit the loss of life and decrease the damage caused by earthquakes.
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Earthquakes are caused by the shifting of the Earth's tectonic plates. We don't get earthquakes like the West coast here on the east coast because there simply isn't as much shifting.
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Faults are breaks in earth's lithosphere where movement occurs. Sometimes movement is smooth w/ no problem but most of the time there is.\n\nB/c of the force being applied to the the rocks along the fault, energy is built up. When the rocks can no longer withstand the pressure they will break. The built up energy is released at one time causing seismic waves to be sent out from the point of origin. The point of origin is referred to as the focus.\n\nThe focus is the place inside the earth where the earthquake actually begins. It is usually far underground somewhere along the fault.\n\nAn epicenter is the point at the surface directly above the focus.
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Plate tectonics is the process by which the crustal plates constantly move about, collide, diverge, and, in the process, and recycle themselves to/from the mantle; Earth is the only planet known at the moment that has such processes. I can't simplify it much more, I'm sorry.
603115
volcanos\ntectonic plates movements
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I don't know for sure, I believe it mainly affects the Arkansas and Missouri area.  It is likely related to the Ozarks, and caused that huge earthquake in the early 1900s near St. Louis.\n\nTo answer the other question, there is also a San Andreas fault system and plate in California but that is losely related to this fault system.