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Effects of Ground Shaking in Earthquakes

Ground shaking is the most common effect of earthquakes and can range from gentle to incredibly violent depending on the magnitude. During large earthquakes, strong shaking can last for several minutes and cause significant damage to buildings and infrastructure. While the shaking itself does not directly kill people, the collapse of structures during earthquakes has resulted in many deaths. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused the collapse of a section of the Cypress freeway in Oakland, killing 41 people due to ground shaking amplified by loose sediments. The earthquake also caused widespread damage in San Francisco's Marina District built on unstable bay mud that liquefied and amplified the shaking.

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Ariel Nicor Andresio
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319 views4 pages

Effects of Ground Shaking in Earthquakes

Ground shaking is the most common effect of earthquakes and can range from gentle to incredibly violent depending on the magnitude. During large earthquakes, strong shaking can last for several minutes and cause significant damage to buildings and infrastructure. While the shaking itself does not directly kill people, the collapse of structures during earthquakes has resulted in many deaths. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused the collapse of a section of the Cypress freeway in Oakland, killing 41 people due to ground shaking amplified by loose sediments. The earthquake also caused widespread damage in San Francisco's Marina District built on unstable bay mud that liquefied and amplified the shaking.

Uploaded by

Ariel Nicor Andresio
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Ground Shaking

Ground shaking is the most familiar effect of earthquakes. It is a result of the passage of seismic waves through the ground, and ranges from quite gentle in small
earthquakes to incredibly violent in large earthquakes. In the 27 March 1964 Alaskan earthquake, for example, strong ground shaking lasted for as much as 7
minutes! Buildings can be damaged or destroyed, people and animals have trouble standing up or moving around, and objects can be tossed around due to strong
ground shaking in earthquakes. However, you should note that, while many people are killed in earthquakes, none are actually killed directly by the shaking -- if
you were out in an open field during a magnitude 9 earthquake, you would be extremely scared (I know I would), but your chance of dying would be zero or damn
near it. It is only because we persist in building buildings, highways, and the like that people are killed; it's our responsibility, not the earthquake's.

Below is an image of the Cypress viaduct which was part of Interstate 880 in Oakland, CA. The upper level of the two-level structure has collapsed onto the lower
level as a result of failure of the support columns. The columns failed partially in response to ground shaking from the 17 October 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
amplified by loose sediments near the Oakland waterfront. 41 people were killed in the collapse.
Image by H.G. Wilshire, U.S. Geological Survey.

Below is an image from the Marina District in San Francisco. The Marina District is built on Bay mud which was pumped onto the San Francisco waterfront for the
1915 Pan-American Exposition. This fill both underwent liquefaction (see below) and considerably amplified ground shaking from the Loma Prieta earthquake.
These factors together led to the collapse of many houses and apartment buildings in the Marina District.
Image by J.K. Nakata, U.S. Geological Survey.

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Ground Rupture
Ground rupture is another important effect of earthquakes which occurs when the earthquake movement along a fault actually breaks the Earth's surface. While
active ground rupture is comparatively rare, there have been cases of it in California -- for example, during the 1906 earthquake, fences near Pt. Reyes were offset
by as much as 7 meters. And in the Owens Valley earthquake in 1872, a fault scarp as much as 8 meters high broke the ground near Lone Pine. Rupture causes
problems for humans by, well, rupturing things; pipelines, tunnels, aqueducts, railway lines, roads, and airport runways which cross an area of active rupture can
easily be destroyed or severely damaged.

Below is a classic picture of a scarp formed by the 16 December 1954 Dixie Valley earthquake (magnitude 6.8) in Nevada. The miner's shack next to the scarp was
relatively undamaged, despite being only a few meters from the two- to three-meter offset.

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