North Carolina Earthquake Causes

In North Carolina many of us have been effected in some way by tornados, hurricanes, and maybe even an earthquake, but I would bet that none of us have been effected by the worse natural disaster the tsunami. Historically, tsunamis have been caused by a plethora of different events. Some of these are underwater earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides. Many people might recognize earthquakes as a violent shake in the earth’s crust and this is true, but tsunamis can be more powerful causing a greater damage. Tsunamis happen when the plates on the crust of the earth move, therefore moving the entire plate so that the water rises and is pushed forward, therefore causing a tsunami (Drohan, 2009, p.21). These tectonic plates are everywhere, under everything from the biggest mountain to the smallest hill. Though it is infrequent, volcanoes have been known to cause tsunamis. It happens when to volcano begins to erupt, but instead of coming out from the top of the volcano a lateral blast shoots out from the side. Next, a quickly moving avalanche of lava pours into the water near it causing the wave to travel to distant coastlines (Springer, 2005). On August 26, 1883, after the collapse of the volcano of Krakatoa this

“Landslides are large glacier pieces of ice that falls into the ocean causing a great wall because of the pressure that comes on to the water. Landslides happen because of earthquakes or volcanos.” ( Gray, 2008, p. 14-17). Even though many people call them landslides they are actually called mega-tsunamis. Mega-tsunamis have a higher amplitude of waves just because of the force on the water. Surprisingly, there are also tsunamis are caused by landslides under the water and they are called a submarine landslide. Often, these occur by earthquakes as well. These happen under the water and can cause the biggest and most harmful of all of the tsunamis ( Springer,