Introduction: Try to find a pattern to the earthquakes – either long-term earthquake activity or recent activity patterns. Chose an area to focus on- Southern California, by fault or the whole area. Compare the South and the North for activity amounts. Does the number of fault lines correlate to the quantity of activity? What is the depth of the earthquake? How does the depth of the activity relate to the size of the area the quake if felt in? Are deeper earthquakes felt in a narrower region or do they have a wider expanse of roll? These are just some suggested areas that you could focus on to create a data report. Choose an idea that has 4 to 5 components to it and find the data that supports it, proves it false, or simply discover there is not enough information to prove your concept either way.
Acquaint Yourself with the Data: How do you research earthquakes? – This really depends on what type of data you are looking for. Some data files are more specific than others. Some are long lists of information covering a large series of events that occur over years, some are shorter, related to specific incidents.
Let's look at the data readily available to us. California-Nevada Fault Maps is a good place to start. Look at the left-side menu bar. It lists earthquakes for the hour, day, and week. It shows magnitudes, fault lines. It is a “real time” fault map, with links to past, present, future and location information. It not only covers CA/NV information but also has links to a broader spectrum of information for the entire USA and worldwide as well. The Shake maps break down the earthquake data in an entirely different way - by intensity and damage potential.
For a broader base of information look here: USGS Earthquakes Hazard Program. There are more links listed at the bottom of the page that cover other data. Choose 4 or 5 components and collect the information from the data bases.
Ask: After you look through the information links on these websites, choose a path of data you would like to follow. Gather enough information to answer the set of questions you are building your project from. — Think of a pattern you could research – Long-term data on earthquakes above a certain size. Patterns of recent activity – what does this mean? Are they increasing in frequency? Graph the weekly number of quakes that occurred over a few months. Consider magnitude in this equation.
- Is there a flow to the pattern of earthquakes?
- How many occur weekly?
- How often are they bigger than a certain magnitude – what is the typical quantity for each magnitude?
- Locations – do they follow a pattern of small to large in one centralized area – or seem to randomly rotate around the different zones or fault lines?
- Does weather play any role? Is there a study of temperature related to the number of quakes?
- Are there specific times of day they tend to occur? More frequently at night or during the day?
- Is there a typical growth and fade down of magnitude with a large one inbetween?
Arrange Your Answers: You’ve found a focal point and collected the data—but what does it mean? Can you find a pattern to how the earthquakes occur? Do they follow a set fault for a while and then jump to another one? Does a series of earthquakes on one fault jump seem suddenly jump to another fault line? In a larger view – do earthquakes on one side of the world balance out with earthquakes in another part? Find meaning in your data and use it to paint a picture. Break the collected data into useable chunks of information. Be sure to save the urls you find your information on in case you need to refer back to them later.
Apply What You've Learned: Organize your data into a meaningful format. Take the data you have collected and place it into an Excel data sheet, breaking it down by different headers or data types. Use the Sort tool to see if the data breaks into identifiable patterns. Take a screen shot of each sorted version. Attach them to your written report.
Write up a short paper in Microsoft Word explaining what you have discovered with your data collection. Explain the screen shots of data that is sorted. Include a list of the web pages you collected your data from and how you chose the path of information you would follow. Explain if your thesis idea was supported by the data you collected or proved wrong. Cite the webpages you used at the end of your report.
Evaluation of Your Work: See how your work compares with the learning rubric below.
1 = not acceptable 2 = could be better 3 = acceptable 4 = outstanding
Conclusion: Earthquakes remind us how powerful nature is. They can change our lives in just the few seconds they take to roll and release pressure. Data about them is easy to access, partly because response times are important. Earthquakes are not just localized events. Pressure released from one fault-line can build up in another. Tsunamis are released, effecting distant populations. Although they are constantly being studied and reviewed, information is collected and compared, we still do not know how to predict when they will occur. They are one of the mysteries of the world waiting to be explained.
Credits and References:
- USGS California-Nevada Fault Maps
- http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqscanv/
- USGS Scientific Data
- http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/data/?areaID=13
- Seismograph Station List
- http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/gis/station_comma_list.asc
- Regional Data
- http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/data/#cat18
- SeismiQuery
- http://quake.geo.berkeley.edu/SeismiQuery/
- SoCal ShakeMaps
- http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/shakemap/sc/shake/archive/
Updated on July 11, 2010 • Loosely based upon a Template from EDTEC 570