| Term | Definition |
|---|
| earthquake | a sudden movement of the ground caused by shifts in parts of the earth's crust occurring along a fault line |
| seismograph | a device that records earthquake waves and calculates the time, strength, and duration of earthquakes |
| ring of fire | 80% of all major earthquakes in the world happen here |
| seismology | the science that studies earthquakes and their causes |
| focus | the point underground where the movement of an earthquake first takes place |
| ritcher scale | a numerical scale used to measure the magnitude or energy release of an earthquake |
| athenosphere | the mixture of gases that surround the earth |
| litosphere | the seismic active region of the earth, including the crust and upper mantle; this layer of the earth is approximately 62 miles thick |
| mercalli scale | a scale that measures the damage caused by an earthquake at different locations |
| tsunami | waves generated by an earthquake that travel through earth or along its surface |
| plate techtonics | a theory that explains movements of continental and oceanic plates as well as changes in earth's crust and mantle as a result of internal forces |
| epicenter | the point on the earth's surface directly above the point of origin or focus of an earthquake |
| mantle | the layer of earth under the crust in which plate movement is generated |
| strike slip fault | rocks on either side of the fault are moving past each other without much upward or downward movement |
| reverse fault | a break in rock caused by compression forces where rock above the fault surfaces move upward relative to the rock below the fault surface |
| fault | a break in earth's crust along which sections of rock slide past each other |
| convergent boundary | this is where 2 plates are moving toward each other and where crust is destroyed when one plate is pushed beneath the other plate |
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