HELPFUL JAPANESE MODEL EXPLAINS THE WORKS OF AN EARTHQUAKE

For many people, earthquakes are a frightening but inevitable reality, especially in places like Japan that are vulnerable to seismic events. Many people find it difficult to understand how and why these events occur since they are so large in scope. The Osaka City Museum of Natural History has one of the most straightforward—yet most effective—explanations. There is a useful model that illustrates how earthquakes form thousands of kilometers below the surface.

According to the United States Geological Service (USGS), "the Earth's numerous tectonic plates can span hundreds of miles and underlie both continents and oceans." These plates travel past one another, collide, and separate. The strongest earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and landslides happen in subduction zones, which are where two plates clash and one plate is driven beneath the other.

The model shows a subduction fault, where an oceanic plate—a section of the earth—is being forced beneath another. Four plates—the Pacific, North American, Eurasian, and Philippine plates—converge in Japan, while the Juan de Fuca Plate moves beneath the North American Plate to form the Cascadia Subduction Zone in the western United States.

The model depicts a tiny city attached to a metal sheet. The bottom part is connected to a block that is continually rolling; however, the friction is unpredictable. At some points, the metal sheet glides smoothly, but when it becomes stuck, it sends powerful waves to the small city on top. The more stuck it gets, the larger and more powerful the waves it sends become. (If you want to see how it works in real life and how these movements create tsunamis, check out this animation by the Alaska Earthquake Center.)

In addition to improving our understanding of the inner workings of our environment, knowing how earthquakes operate is essential for creating safer construction systems and realizing the value of emergency drills and evacuation procedures.