Re: Volcanoes & Earthquakes

From: Stuart (bigdakine_at_aol.com)
Date: 02/19/05 

Date: 19 Feb 2005 13:58:49 -0800

Charani wrote:
> My 9 year old dau was asking how earthquakes happen, what causes them
> and the same for volcanoes. She also wanted to know why we didn't
get
> volcanoes in the UK. She was surprised that we do get earth tremors
> here.

You can get tremors almost anywhere.

>
> Could someone give her a fairly simple explanation without too much
> technical detail please??
>
> TIA

The Earth's surface is broken up a like a puzzle. Some pieces are big,
like the size of North America, and others are much smaller like the
size of Texas. These pieces, which scientists call plates, are
continually moving. Each of these plates have rough boundaries with
other plates and these boundaries are called "faults". As the plates
move earthquakes occur on the faults. 99% of all earthquakes occur on
the plate boundaries or faults.

Stuart

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