Chile Earthquake Research Paper

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Chile earthquake 2010
Where was the earthquake
Map of the shock area of the 2010 chile earthquake

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The map above shows where the earthquake occurred in Chile. The red zone in this photo shows the impact radius of the shock waves. On this map the distance ration is 400 km is 1 cm. We can see from the photo that the earthquake not only struck the central area of Chile but it also managed to reach a small part of Argentina. The shock radius was around 600 kilometers wide And t caused tremendous damage to the surrounding areas. The earthquake that hit was a magnitude of an astonishing 8.8. An earthquake of this magnitude would destroy a large amount of infrastructure. The epicenter (area directly …show more content…

The epicenter of the earthquake was 35.909°S, 72.733°W ( just off the coast of Chile) at around 35 kilometers below the surface. The earthquake was by far one of the biggest earthquakes that ever occurred in Chile, coming in just under the Valdivia earthquake in 1960 (A.K.A The largest ever recorded earthquake in the world) with a magnitude of 9.5. The earthquake lasted a total of 30 second, this was also an earthquake that went a long distance inward reaching even as far inward as Argentina. The reason why Chile is such an earthquake prone, is because it is so close to the boundary of two tectonic plates. because the country is so close to the plate boundary, whenever the plate moves or shifts in ways that cause large releases in energy, Chile often suffers the consequences. The graph below shows the areas at which the shaking of the earthquake was most intense. The earthquake main damage areas were around the center of Chile in cities such as Santiago, Los Angeles and more. The quake was so large that the shock areas even reached as far as Mendoza in Argentina, meaning that the earthquake reached as far as 863 kilometers …show more content…

The massive amount of energy that was created from the force of the earthquake even caused the earth axis to tilt slightly. The quakes destructive power caused 525 people to lose their live with more than 2 million people being affected by the earthquake, due to the falling infrastructure, opening of roads or crumbling of landscapes that the shaking from the earthquake caused. A few hours later, a tsunami that ranged from 3 to 15 meters high. The tsunami picked up from where the shock waves left off damaging whole cities in its wake. the earthquake had a frequency of 1 (the lower the frequency the more intense the earthquake is) and would be described as a great earthquake on the Richter scale (made by Charles F. Richter in 1935, the Richter scale is used to measure the amount of energy is released in an earthquake). After the original earthquake there were a total of 76 aftershocks that had magnitudes of 4.9 or greater. Although the effects of the earthquake were devastating we can learn from whats happened. The more information that we can gather from earthquakes and natural disasters the closer we will be to making solutions to prevent these disasters from affecting us so

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