• Would you live in an earthquake zone? What level of risk from earthquakes is acceptable to you?
• How would you know if the earthquake risk was assessed accurately? What are the characteristics of a good earthquake risk assessment?
• What should be done by people and communities within an earthquake zone to prepare for the hazard and prevent catastrophe?

1. In what ways are earthquakes predictable?
2. To what other hazards are earthquakes linked?
3. What are the potentially disastrous consequences of earthquakes?
4. In what ways has human activity made earthquake hazards catastrophic?
5. How can the hazardous consequences of earthquakes be minimized?

RESOURCES

Notes: View slides | download PowerPoint

Text: Chapter 3

Additional reading

• New USGS map shows where damaging EQs are most likely to occur in the US
  • The United States Has an Updated Map of Earthquake Hazards
• A Common Language for Reporting Earthquake Intensities
• U.S. Earthquake Early Warning System Gets a Major Upgrade
• Imaging Below the Surface Reveals One of Los Angeles’s Webs of Faults
• Unused Fiber-Optic Cables Repurposed as Seismic Sensors
• Telecom Fibers Are Sensing Earthquake Hazards in Istanbul
• Global Earthquake Analysis Seeks Elusive Foreshock Signal
• Rougher Faults May Generate More Earthquake Aftershocks
• Felt Reports Could Shake Up Earthquake Response
• Accounting for Offbeat Earthquakes Could Improve Forecasts
• Ten Years on from the Quake That Shook the Nation's Capital
• Swipe Left on the "Big One": Better Dates for Cascadia Quakes
• Surviving on the Periphery of a City of Earthquakes
• A Tokyo resident describes the aftermath of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Read text
• Ground-shaking research: How humans trigger earthquakes
• Quakes Pack More Punch in Eastern Than in Central United States
• Measuring Plate Motion with GPS
• Tectonics and Earthquakes of the Himalaya
• Some Farm Animals Might Have a Sense About Impending Earthquakes
• A Massive Earthquake Is Coming to Cascadia - And It Can't Be Stopped
• The Really Big One
• What Controls Giant Subduction Earthquakes?
• Understanding Earthquakes Triggered by Wastewater Injection
• Monitoring Earthquakes at the Speed of Light
• Subducted Seamounts May Lead to Larger Earthquakes
• Costa Rican Faults Quiver in Response to Distant Earthquakes
• The 2023 Türkiye-Syria Earthquakes Shifted Stress in the Crust
• Uncovering Earthquake Evidence in Azerbaijan’s Greater Caucasus Mountains
• Submarine Avalanche Deposits Hold Clues to Past Earthquakes

• Virtual Earthquake (complete for 10 pts. EC)

• Earthquakes in Illinois
  • Illinois Emergency Management Agency: https://www2.illinois.gov/iema/Preparedness/Pages/Earthquake.aspx
  • Center for Earthquake Research and Information: http://www.ceri.memphis.edu/
• US Geological Survey
  • general information & recent earthquakes: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/
  • Hazard maps
• California's program
• Federal Emergency Management Agency: https://www.fema.gov/earthquake
• Centers for Disease Control: http://www.cdc.gov/disasters/earthquakes/
• United Relations Relief Web
  • China Earthquake
• National Geographic Society
  • Earthquake Information
• NASA Earthquake response: https://appliedsciences.nasa.gov/what-we-do/disasters/earthquakes
• Nevada Seismological Laboratory: http://www.seismo.unr.edu