WEBVTT - How Earthquakes Work 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.640 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:16.599 from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:19.720 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles W. 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:24.639 Chuck Chuckers. I love you, Bryant, you're saying that or 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:28.680 that's my middle name. I love everybody. Sure, I'm in 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:32.640 high spirit city, Chuck. Things are moving, stuff is taking place, 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.440 things are coming to. Fruition is out of nowhere because 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:38.560 you were not feeling this way, like literally seconds before 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:40.680 we recorded. I don't know what you're talking about. Wow, 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:42.800 I'm in brass, dude. You can turn it on. You 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:45.080 know why, Chuck? Why? I can tell because you're drinking 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.360 your little energy drinking. Yes, I would call it an 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:52.360 energy soda, be little dream sailor. That was Yeah, you 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:54.720 really like that podcast? Into it? I thought it was good. 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.240 My favorite part was when we mentioned the doctor in Berkeley, 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:02.400 when you said, um boom or around or something like that. Yeah, 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.520 that's funny. Yeah, thanks, I thought um. I liked all 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.320 the nose breathing I did in that podcast. For some reason, 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:13.240 we just sit around talk about our whole podcast Hey, Chuck, Hey, Josh, 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.880 you did some time out in l A right. Yeah. So, um, 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:19.840 I know that you met Matthew McConaughey. You left that 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:24.000 story and uh keep for Sutherland's driver. Yeah, and him. 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:26.480 I saw him in the grocery store too, with his driver, 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:29.280 No with How did you know it was him that 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.800 a bucks? Some blonde babe actually got you? Um it 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:35.840 was Keith for Southernlandon. I mean it's unmistakable got you. 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:40.760 Um he's breathing, mouth breathing behind me in line. We're 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:42.640 gonna get in trouble one day for that. I know 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:44.280 he's a hot head too. He just got suited. He 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:46.640 like hit a photographer somebody did he really? Yeah? So 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:49.080 watch watch your back. Plus he knows his way around 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.200 a gun, Yes he does, and he's ruthless, as I 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:54.320 understand it from what I've seen on TV. I know 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:56.680 what you're about to ask me about Los Angeles. I 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.120 know you do, because we're doing how earthquakes work. So Chuck, 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:01.000 let's just cut to the chase, shall we. I have 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:03.600 never felt an earthquake out there, nor have I. I 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.000 was out there for four years, dude, and I was 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.280 there when earthquakes happened, and I never realized it and 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:11.799 felt anything. Friends of mine will be like, dude, did 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:15.079 you feel that this morning? Yeah? No, I have no idea. 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.240 Did they use a lot of that um honey that 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:22.760 comes in the Little Bear? Yes? Did they? They did, dude, 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:28.000 that's what they say. And Kelly Chuck, I've never experienced 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:32.120 an earthquake either. The closest um thing to an earthquake 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.760 story I have involves earthquake proofing. Let's hear it. Remember 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:39.120 my friend Hippie Rob, Hippy Rob did a little time 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:42.480 out in Uh, I'm so a fan of the honey Bear. Yeah, yes, 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.960 oh yeah, Hippy Rob did a some time out in 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:49.960 San Quentin. Actually really yeah, here's the thing. He was 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:53.440 not looking forward to doing San Quentin, I imagine, um. 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:56.120 And he finds out that right when he gets there 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:59.880 that um, he and all the other relatively light off 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.440 enders are going to be moved to Fulsome prison, which 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.960 was undergoing earthquake proofing construction. Right, so they were going 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:10.679 to keep all the light offenders at Folsome and then 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.240 move all the light offenders at San Quentin over to Folsom. 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:16.840 And then they moved all like the murderers and rapists 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.480 and peder asks to uh that we're at San Quentin. 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.880 Fo over to San Quentin. Wow, that's my earthquake story. 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.600 Good for Falsome. So Hippie Rob got off easy. He 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.880 was with light offenders in Falsome? Did he Did they 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:33.960 actually have to work on the earthquake proofing where they 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:35.360 put the work or was it just go? I don't 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.720 think so. Would you trust the guy named Hippie Rob 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.160 to earthquake proofs your prison? Would not? I wouldn't either. 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:42.520 So let's talk about earthquakes. Let's do it. Can I 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:44.760 you want a little history? I did some extra research. 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:51.560 Let's hear it. So before nineteen fifteen, we didn't really 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:53.560 have much of a conception of what was going on 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:57.240 geologically with with the continents, right? Was it just anyone's 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.200 gas at that point? Yeah? I think you or I 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:01.360 could have come up with adequate theory. We'd be like 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:05.400 ghosts or something like that. Um, but the ghosts was 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:09.520 not an acceptable explanation for a guy named Alfred Wegner. Uh, 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.040 he's a German clearly because his last name because with 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.640 a W, but I pronounced it with a V, which 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.039 is a dead giveaway for a German is a German, 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:23.360 right um. So Wagner Um was actually an astronomer by training, 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.360 but he was fascinated with geology, and he became increasingly 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.279 fascinated when he found out that there had been fossils 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:36.080 identical plant in animal fossils found um on the let's see, 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.120 that would be the east coast of South America and 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:42.200 the west coast of Africa. And at the time, the 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:44.400 predominant theory was that there were land bridges that were 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.839 now under water and that's how these species would have 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:50.800 gotten together. Wegner he thought, I don't know that that's 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:54.040 entirely true, and he also noted that Africa kind of 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:58.440 looked like it could fit into South America. Interesting point. 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:00.440 So he started thinking about it and think about and 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:04.600 he realized that some he he postulated about three million 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.920 years ago, all of the continents were hooked together, which 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:14.360 he called one big, stinking massive land right in Greek, 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:18.400 that would be Pangaea. And uh so Pangea starts to 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:23.000 break apart, and basically Wevegner uh postulated that the the 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.480 continents were in fact still drifting. He thought that they 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.040 were basically plowing along the ocean, and it was due 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:34.520 to centrifugal force and title movement. And title movement, it 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:39.040 makes sense for the time. It's back in UM. He 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:41.880 was right about the continents drifting. We know that, but 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.880 not with the centrifugal force the title movement. One of 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.919 his rivals calculated that UM, for the tides to move 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.760 a continent, that that kind of force would actually stop 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.720 the rotation of the Earth in less than twelve months. 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:58.400 So that wasn't it. But he was right about the 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:02.400 continents drifting. UM. He was pretty much ridiculed during his lifetime. 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.200 But in the nineteen fifties and sixties, as we got 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:09.159 more and more acquainted with UM, the the actual ridges 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.800 along the plates, uh, they figured out that Vegner had 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.200 been right. The continents were in fact drifting, not in 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:19.640 the way he thought. Right, go, go Vegner, that's the 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.960 history lesson. That's good. And I didn't know that. I know, 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.359 I told you it was extra research. And that's continental 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.800 drift theory. Right. Once we figured this out that actually 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.520 the what is that the lithosphere, the surface of the 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.159 Earth which all these different plates make up, are actually 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:40.600 moving along the atheneos sphere, which is this layer of 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:43.960 rock that Actually it is a lubricantant behaves like a 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:47.120 liquid because of the heat and pressure, right, right, So 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.400 it's the goop in between the plates that's kind of 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:53.320 cushioning everything. Right. And we figured this out. I didn't, 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.599 You didn't, but you know, geologists did. Um and we 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:59.080 once we figured it out, we realized that that explains 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:05.520 all sorts of stuff like volcanoes, um, trenches, yes, mountains 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:10.240 under ocean, uh, bridges under the ocean. But most importantly 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:15.360 this podcast, it also explains Yeah, volcanoes, plate tectonics, earthquakes. 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:19.880 It's good stuff. Earthquakes, no volcanoes, Okay, tsunami. Well so wait, 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.680 we're gonna switch mid podcast and do how volcanoes work. 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.120 Let's just make it up. Yeah, it really does. It 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.760 explains earthquakes, uh, and it all makes sense. And I 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:32.240 love plate technico tectonics. Who doesn't, you know, just the 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:34.400 thought of our earth. I don't know. Stuff like this 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:38.440 makes me feel insignificant in a good way, that that 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:40.280 you know, we're kind of on this earth humans and 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.920 we think we're all that, but we're really pit the 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.800 whim of whatever the Earth decided to do. There was 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:47.320 something going on at the core that we didn't know 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:49.120 about right now, and all of a sudden everything started 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.120 going haywire. We'd be powerless. Oh yeah, so I kind 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:55.320 of like that insignificant feeling occasionally. I mean we're powerless 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.320 to you know, baseball size hail. Yeah exactly, you know, 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:02.800 let alone the movement of continents. Yeah, you want some stats, Josh, Chuck, 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.679 I knew you'd bring those up. There are actually many, many, 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.760 many earthquakes all the time. Uh, you just don't feel 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:12.200 them all. They don't get attention if you don't feel them, 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:14.000 and they don't get attention if they're not where people are, 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:16.480 which a lot of them are as well or away 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:20.560 from people. Uh, there's one earthquake every eleven seconds, Josh. 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:24.520 That's eight thousand per day, about three million per year. Actually, 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.679 the U S Geological Survey maintains the site Chuck um 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:31.760 that has like updated earthquake activity around the world. Did 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:35.880 you know about, let's see, six hours ago, there was 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:40.240 a six point seven earthquake UM in Papua New Guinea. Dude, Really, 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.920 that's big. It's a pretty cool sit Anything over seven 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:46.280 is the major scale is a big time major. Yeah, 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:47.800 we'll get to the Richter scale and if you don't 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:52.120 give it away. So, yeah, that many earthquakes is a lot, 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:53.840 but you don't feel them if they're if they're must 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.920 them are deep underground, right or in uninhabited areas exactly, 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:00.520 And so unless it's in a may your city or 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:02.480 something and killing folks, it's not gonna make the news. 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.240 But speaking of killing folks, have got one more stat 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.760 I like this one. One point five million people have 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:12.880 died from earthquake related activity in the last hundred years alone. 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:15.600 And you know, earthquakes get a really bad rap, chuck, 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:19.240 because really most of those debts are attributed to you know, 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.319 collapse structures or tsunamis or mud slides generated by the 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:29.160 earthquake exactly. The earthquake just opens up, the earth opens up, 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.760 and he swallowed into it like the movies, except in Superman. 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.400 Yeah remember that. Yeah, he reversed it. That dude flying 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.440 very fast, and he liked the Lex Luthor's girlfriend doing 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:47.120 so too. He did crickets, Josh, I think we should 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:50.840 get back to tectonics. Okay, let's talk about plates under 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:55.559 the earth and what can happen. Basically when these things 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.480 meet up. The two plates meet up, right, which where 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:01.280 they where two plates meet is of it's a fault, right, right. 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:03.880 You probably heard of the San Andrea's fault line in California, 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:07.680 very famous. Fault faults are where most earthquake earthquakes happen. 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.600 I keep on say volcanoes, it's so weird. So, uh, 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:13.920 what happens when plates get together is they can do 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:17.160 a couple of things. They can move apart from each other. Uh. 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:20.679 In that case, the magma comes out, Magma turns into 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.320 lava that cools and hardens, and then it kind of 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:27.360 reforms as part of the structure. So we should he 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:29.560 uses through and then makes it more solid, right, and 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:31.600 then it cools and you have a new land mass form. 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.680 Exactly right. We should also probably point out here to 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:38.280 any um people who believe in the hollow earth theory 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:41.280 that we're discussing this based on the notion that the 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.040 Earth's core is molten. Okay, yeah, sure, so go ahead 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:47.439 and chuck disclaimer there. What kind of fault was that 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:49.280 that you just described? Well, no, that wasn't a fault. 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.439 That's just what happens when the plates move apart. When 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:56.600 the plates pushed together one oftentimes one will go underneath 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:58.439 the other. Like they'll meet up and then one will 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.679 slide onto the other one and it dissolves basically at 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:04.480 that point. And the final thing josh Ish the plates 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.120 can slide against each other, so they just kind of 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.400 pass in the night, basically, just kind of moving by 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:13.400 each other very slowly. And all these different things that 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:15.920 I'm talking about where these plates meet, that is where 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:18.840 we get to the faults. Right there, there's four kinds, right, 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:21.360 the S and D. There's four kinds that can they 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:25.240 either go vertically or horizontally. As far as the faults 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:27.920 are concerned, You've got the normal fault and the reverse fault. 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.559 Those are vertical faults, right, So the normal fault is 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.200 where the plates actually move away from one another. The 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.480 reverse fault is where they moved together, right, And then 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.000 you have ones that that move horizontally, which I think 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.680 the San Andrea's fault is is a horizontal fault. Is 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:44.760 it a thrust fault? I think it's either a thrust 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.120 fall or strike slip fault. Okay, so it's basically the 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:51.000 same thing, except along along horizontal lines rather than vertical. Right, 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.280 But no matter which way they're moving, they can be 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:58.040 moving apart, moving together horizontally or vertically. UM. All fault 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:03.240 lines are basically where plates are still pressing together very tightly, right, 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.800 and when when they pressed together, they're eventually going to 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.720 get locked because of friction, right, But the pressure is 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:11.839 still going. They still want to move. So all this 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.560 potential energy is being built up, and as it builds 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:19.360 and builds and builds, the pressure eventually overcomes the resistance 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:22.280 and all of a sudden you have a slip. It breaks, 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.880 it does, and that's that's actually the epicenter of the 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.360 focus of the earthquake where that happens right there. That 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:30.679 is the key, that is what an earthquake is, Yes, 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:34.480 is when the initial fault break or more that happened 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:38.040 later on occur. We really paid that out in a 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:41.680 dramatic fashion, didn't we. Yeah, it didn't feel that dramatic 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:43.320 to me. It will when we listen to that, maybe 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:48.160 because I know the ending, so chuck right, they can't 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:52.520 believe you gave it away. So fault zones, that's that's 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.280 where there's lots of faults together connected, right. Yeah, So 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:57.640 one of those one of those faults slipping one of 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.360 that UM a place where the potential energy you turns 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:04.080 kinectic all of a sudden can actually trigger um faults, 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.040 or it can actually trigger movement along other faults that 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:11.320 are connected those fault zones you mentioned, right, That's why 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.480 earthquakes often happen in a series. It's more than more 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.800 than one, right, and they almost always happened along the faults. 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.880 But I know that very uh one, very famous earthquake 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:25.000 in eighteen eleven and eighteen twelve, which I didn't Did 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.240 that happen in like December thirty one, in January one 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.680 or what? I don't know. That's a good point twelve 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.520 one long earthquake. Yeah, it would be. We'll find out 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:36.800 about that. But that occurred in the middle of a plate, 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:39.000 in the middle of the North American continental Plate, which 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.040 is odd at the time, but it was They found 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.440 out later that deep beneath the earth that was in 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:47.720 fact a six hundred million year old fault zone. So yeah, 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:50.440 there you have it. Yeah, so it's it's some way 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:55.560 or another there's a fault zone involved. Indeed, so chuck um, 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:58.760 we actually have a way to measure earthquakes. We measure 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:03.600 them through their seismic waves, right, make waves, which seismic 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:06.600 waves are the energy that radiates from their focus and 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.640 it it acts as a wave much like a wave 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.200 in water, right, like if you were to throw sound 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:14.800 waves rock and a pond, that kind of thing. There's 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:18.440 there's two different types of waves, two major types of waves. 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:22.280 You have body waves and you have surface waves. So 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.000 let's talk about body waves first. Yes, they move through 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.080 the inside of the earth, the inner part of the earth. Right. 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:29.160 And well there's two different kinds of it's primary and 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:33.600 secondary body waves waves, pea waves or s waves. It's 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:38.040 easy to remember mnemonic induction and lucid dreaming, etcetera. Right. 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:41.360 They travel about one to five miles per second. The 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.280 pea waves too. Yeah, and they're actually they can move 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.840 through solid liquid or gas. Yes, they cannot be stopped. No, 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:51.680 so they can actually go from one end of the 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.080 Earth to the other. Well, they do too every time. 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.080 Isn't that correct? I don't know. I think that's what 0:14:56.120 --> 0:15:00.040 it says. We'll find out. Uh. And these these the 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.840 pea waves, actually they affect the stuff that they're moving, 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:07.680 like say, rock horizontally, so it shakes back and forth 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:10.920 on a horizontal plane. Okay, And like you said, they're 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.120 the fastest, so they get there first. But I got 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:15.520 the impression that they caused the least amount of damage. 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.000 Then you have secondary waves, right, secondary body waves. Yeah, 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.440 that's the problem. Well, they're the first problem because they 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:27.840 displaced rock perpendicularly to the direction of the wave. Right. 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:32.120 So you remember the movie Tremors, So you remember the 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.560 worms going underground and it was displacing dirt up on 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.080 the Earth's surface. Same thing. That's like, that's like a 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:41.360 secondary wave and s wave. I love that you're quoting 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:48.320 tremors are scientific? Backup. I love that one. You It's 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:53.720 great spread ward classic. So so actually that was Kevin Bay. Yeah, 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:55.160 that was such a good one. It's probably one of 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:59.280 my top five. Yeah. Um, so let's let's talk about 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:02.480 surface waves you want, Well you should actually just say 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.080 real quick though, that they don't travel through solid material, 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:11.120 the secondary so they stopped liquid the liquid Earth's core, 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:14.840 or if you believe in hollow war theory, they would 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.120 stop when it became hollow because it doesn't travel through 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.160 gas apparently either, right, Yeah, they would stop at the 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.640 temple of Doom. Yeah, according to dollarwar theory. Can we 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.560 talk about surface waves yet? Yes, we're there. Let's see it. 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.200 They're like more like the waves in a body of water, right, 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:33.680 they move the earth up and down. Did you see 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.360 some of the pictures in this article. This is a 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:39.760 really cool article for pictures. There's actually a page, picture 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:44.800 page of nothing but earthquake aftermath pictures and they're cool 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.640 interactive things too. When you talk about the plate shifting, 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.360 some animations you can click on. Did you see the 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.840 one with the railroad tracks? What was that, Peru? I 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:57.400 don't remember. There's a picture in this article of railroad 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:02.280 tracks that um basically just make a perfect s because 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:05.200 of the surface waves that hit it during an earthquake. Well, 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.159 and the crops that shifted to that being in a 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.119 straight line, they had the wave in them. Yeah, so 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.320 that's all due to surface waves. Surface waves are the 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.720 ones that caused the most damage as far as we're concerned. 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.439 If you're like, you know, a mole man or something, 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.480 you're probably going to be more afraid of secondary body 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.040 waves up top side. We're afraid of, you know, the 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:26.960 surface waves. The l waves are long waves is what 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.760 they're called as well, top top dwellers that we are, right, 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.360 so they caused the worst damage, and because they move 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:34.160 the earth up and down, like you said, a wave, 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.800 a water wave in the ocean, Yeah, exactly, which we don't. 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:42.960 We don't build our buildings generally to withstand wave like motion. No. Well, 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.440 they've done a lot of work though, to build buildings 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:47.600 that can rock back and forth and move a little 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.399 bit and have the foundation shift. It's called earthquake. What 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:55.080 we were talking about reinforcement. Sure, some of my apartments 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.160 in l A actually had were reinforced. You could tell, 0:17:58.160 --> 0:17:59.800 like in the walls they would have these bars running 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:01.920 up in stuff. But yeah, as far as in the 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:05.880 Japan's on like the cutting edge of of earthquake proofing 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.359 of everything. Yeah, yeah, a lot of earthquakes in Japan. 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:16.400 Huh Yeah, and robots and volcanoes. Where are we now, Josh? 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:18.159 You want to talk about Richter scale yet or I 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:21.520 think that's the inevitable conclusion. So, Josh, the Richter scale 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:24.960 is uh, as most people know, records a magnitude of 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:29.240 the earthquake. Um. It's logarithmic, so that means that the 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:32.119 whole number jump means it increases tenfold. So a six 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:34.800 on the Richer scale is actually ten times as powerful 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.600 as the five, and the nine times as powerful as 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.760 the seven. How about that. Yeah, that's serious business. And 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:43.760 what the Richer scale does is it measures that that 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:49.080 wave amplitude of the seismic energy of a quake. And um, 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:51.000 so that's the one you always hear about, Like I 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:52.840 talked about that one in Pepua, New Guinea was a 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.520 six point seven, right, which is large. Anything below a 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.200 three generally doesn't get much attention. This is just a 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:02.400 little tremor my micro quake. It's kind of hard to say. 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.640 And that's the that's the vast majority of earthquakes or 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:08.560 three year less. Right. Yeah, you won't see anything below four. 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:10.200 You won't see a lot of damage going on. But 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:13.720 anything seven and above is a pretty serious business. And 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.560 then the record is a nine point five. I looked 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:22.320 this up nineteen sixty Chile. Right, you're ready for some 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:24.920 stats of my own? Look at you. I mean, imagine 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:29.200 at nine point five on the Richter's kill it's immense. Um, 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:34.080 there were sixteen hundred and sixty five people killed, three 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:40.880 thousand injured, in two hundred thousand homeless in Chile alone, um, 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:44.520 along with five hundred and fifty million dollars in damage 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:49.760 property damage nine sixty. So that's ninety that's the impression 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:53.720 I have you. Um, it created a tsunami that killed 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.440 sixty one people and caused seventy five million dollars with 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:59.200 the damage all the way in Hawaii, you're kidding, And 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:01.680 in Japan and there were a hundred and thirty eight 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:05.399 deaths and fifty million dollars worth of damage. Yeah, and 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:07.280 it just kind of goes on from there. You know, 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:10.240 what they said about that eighteen ten slash eleven earthquake 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:14.320 in Missouri was that they could the church bells in 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:18.080 Boston rang from the from the reverberation. I know that's nuts. Yeah, 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.560 I want to verify that. But big old earthquake right there. 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:24.240 So what you're talking about though, with the assessing the 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:28.400 damage that is actually the Mercali scale, the damage done 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.560 by the earthquake, which has figured out many days or 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:34.119 weeks later, not like the Richter scale. I call that 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:40.000 the y us God scale, right. Yeah, it's it's described 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.600 in Roman numerals up to twelve, which you can also 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.000 say is x I I and x i I is 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:51.679 where there um is evident structural damage. The ground is 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:55.040 opened up, sure like in the movies. Yeah. Um, and 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.520 there's been at least the tsunami or mudslide or some 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.760 other disaster. Yeah, my brother felt the earthquake when he 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:05.960 was in l A. Did he look handsome and much 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.040 more exciting things happen to him out there? His He 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:10.879 he said it felt like a buzzing, like a real 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:12.639 loud buzzing, and then he looked at his closet and 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:15.600 the clothes were shaking, and you know it's over then, 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:17.080 you know, as soon as you realize what's going on, 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:19.600 it's over. Yeah. I read about the nineteen o six 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.960 San Francisco earthquake. They said that the sensible duration of 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:26.520 the earthquake it was a minute really, which I imagine 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:29.480 probably felt like an hour, killed three thousand people. Well, 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:31.359 that's that just goes to show you the kind of 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:34.119 devastation if it only takes sixty seconds to wreak, that 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:37.920 kind of havoc what's going on and fires that broke 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:45.680 out after buildings collapsing, very scary stuff. So, Chuck, Well, 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:48.320 we can't predict earthquakes. We do need to close with that. 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:51.679 I think. Okay, they've come a long way and determining 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:55.320 the the epicenter, and they can predict after shocks pretty 0:21:55.320 --> 0:22:01.240 well now, and they can say, hey, do you to history, 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:03.680 you you're likely to have an earthquake because we think 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.320 things are moving in your area. The plates may be moving, 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:08.840 but they can't accurately say when it's gonna happen. Yeah. 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:12.320 I remember being a little kid, and I think some 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:14.840