I am doing a geography project on the the Japanese earthquake of 2011, and the best one gets a prize! I’m done everything I need and it’s in tomorrow but I’ve just realized I haven’t said what plate is on Japan, what two plates hit each other and how they hit each other? America, and conservative etc. (that’s not right i don’t think, I’m just being clear of what I’m asking) 10 points please helppppppppp!!!!!
Chosen Answer:
First off, the Earth’s surface is comprised of plates of rock. They are called ‘plates’, because they are wide and thin, like the plates we eat off of. These plates are floating on red hot lava, the stuff we see coming out of volcanoes on those TV shows. But the plates aren’t just sitting there. Because the Earth is spinning like a top, the lava under the plates is moving around, and that causes the plates to bump and scrape against each other. That bumping and scraping is what causes earthquakes.
Now, Japan sits on the eastern edge of what is called the ‘Eurasian Plate’ (the word is a contraction of “Europe” and “Asia”). Right next to it are two other plates, the big Pacific Plate, and the small Philippines Plate. What is happening is the Eurasian is slowly moving east. So the edge of the Eurasian Plate is being pushed up, and the edges of both the Pacific and Philippines Plates are being pushed down. When the edge of a plate is pushed up, then you get a long string of mountains and volcanoes. Just like Japan.
BTW when one plate rides over another like that, it is called “subduction”. But remember that this was a collision of THREE plates, not just two.
In addition to being pushed under the Eurasian Plate, the Pacific and Philippine Plates rub against each other a lot. And this leads us to what happened on March 11, 2011. Right where the three plates meet, maybe 50 miles offshore from Japan, the three plates suddenly slid past (“subducted”) each other more than usual. The result was one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history. Since the earthquake was so far offshore, it didn’t do a lot of damage.
But when you get a big movement of earth underwater like that, it moves a lot of water. To get an idea of what happened, go out and find a small puddle of water. Using old shoes (of course) drag your foot through the puddle. A lot of the water will move away from the puddle onto the dry ground (pavement, whatever). This is what happened to Japan, and was called a tsunami. The fact that so much water just flowed several miles inland, is what killed so many people and caused so much damage. The same thing happened offshore of Indonesia on December 26th 2004, and killed a lot more people.
Hope this answers your questions, and makes you understand the material some more.
by: Will
on: 2nd February 13
