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Geology / Earthquakes

Earthquakes are the most widely spread evidence that the Earth is still active. It has been active since it was first formed billions of years ago. Just one billion years ago the Earth had somewhat settled down, there were areas of land (continental crust) surrounded by oceans with their thinner, denser oceanic crust deep beneath the waves. The earth's surface became divided into stable areas of crust with mobile unstable margins. As the oceanic crust cooled it became denser and fell back into the semi-liquid (on a geological time scale) vast volume of the Earth's mantle. This thick mantle is itself driven by convection currents that are continually transporting heat energy from the still hot Core to the cold crust.

One of the main causes of earthquakes are the jerky but remoreseful movements of the plates as they slide, crush or descend past each other. These events cause the really big earthquakes. Alternatively the ascent of the hot magma from the mantle can cause earthquakes, but these tend to be not as strong and not as deep. An eruption of a large volcano can cause local earthquakes as the magma rises and stresses the shallow rocks. Human activity can create small earthquakes too, this often happens when a rivers are dammed and the huge weight of the water building up in the lake causes stresses in the underlying rocks.

This site has an archive of earthquakes in recent times both as a list of events and as an animation. Looking at the pattern of earthquakes over the last few months quickly demonstrates the location of the active plate margins around the world.

If you'd like to look at recent earthquakes, we have generated some pages using data supplied by : U.S. Geological Survey


Date and TimeStrength, LocationLatitudeLongtitude
July 28, 2010 22:51:35 GMTM 5.1, Rota region, Northern Mariana Islands14.8916146.9575
July 28, 2010 22:37:01 GMTM 3.3, Northern California38.8162-122.7917
July 28, 2010 20:20:16 GMTM 4.1, Andreanof Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska52.6895-172.1530
July 28, 2010 20:03:50 GMTM 2.7, Southern Alaska59.9463-153.1791
July 28, 2010 19:49:25 GMTM 3.9, Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska52.7065-169.5297
July 28, 2010 18:21:15 GMTM 5.3, Santa Cruz Islands-12.2519165.4551
July 28, 2010 16:58:56 GMTM 4.1, Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska52.7898-169.3824
July 28, 2010 16:12:05 GMTM 5.2, off the coast of Oregon43.7568-125.7982
July 28, 2010 14:28:37 GMTM 3.0, Baja California, Mexico32.1693-115.2475
July 28, 2010 13:32:12 GMTM 4.1, Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska52.6375-169.3359
July 28, 2010 12:35:21 GMTM 4.1, Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska52.7407-169.1982
July 28, 2010 12:22:25 GMTM 4.5, south of Panama4.7723-82.5467
July 28, 2010 12:07:47 GMTM 5.0, Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska52.7657-169.3983
July 28, 2010 12:07:11 GMTM 2.6, Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska52.5980-169.0277
July 28, 2010 11:44:39 GMTM 2.8, Baja California, Mexico32.0315-115.2153
July 28, 2010 11:37:46 GMTM 4.0, Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska52.6457-169.3506
July 28, 2010 11:37:34 GMTM 2.6, Northern California38.3793-121.5147
July 28, 2010 11:31:50 GMTM 5.5, Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska52.6833-169.3087
July 28, 2010 11:30:29 GMTM 4.6, Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska52.7524-169.3781
July 28, 2010 11:15:28 GMTM 2.5, Baja California, Mexico32.5407-115.7315
July 28, 2010 10:09:25 GMTM 4.8, Kepulauan Mentawai region, Indonesia-3.0457100.8069
July 28, 2010 08:07:09 GMTM 4.8, Mindanao, Philippines6.9611126.6253
July 28, 2010 07:22:35 GMTM 3.0, Baja California, Mexico32.0638-115.2315
July 28, 2010 07:21:58 GMTM 3.4, Baja California, Mexico32.0750-115.2065
July 28, 2010 04:07:54 GMTM 4.4, Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska52.6854-169.5368
July 28, 2010 02:39:31 GMTM 2.8, offshore Northern California40.5603-124.7305
July 28, 2010 02:36:04 GMTM 2.6, Central California37.4128-118.6012
July 28, 2010 01:44:52 GMTM 2.7, Andreanof Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska53.5330-174.4262