Eathquakes

An earthquak otherwise called a "quake" or "tremor" is know as the shaking of the earth due to release of violent energy from beneath the earth crust. Earthquake is an event in which its occurrence caused death, injury and loss of properties to human beings.

(Image gotten from boredpanda.com)

Earthquakes are believed to be caused by many things,few of which are:-

1. Movement of blocks of sediments along major fracture and fault zones
2. Movement of the plates of the earth with respect to each other. When i say plates i mean the African plate,Eurasian plates,indian plates etc. The plates can either move closer to each other resulting in either plates subduction in which the more dense plate subduct beneath the less denser one forming trenches like we have on the ocean floors or if there are equal plates ,they meet each other forming folds on top called mountains(Converging plate boundaries) , away from each other resulting in mid-oceanic ridges ,where molten earth materials are brought to the earth through large opening in the earth and are sites of severe volcanic eruptions (diverging plate boundaries) or rubbing pass each other (Transform plate boundaries). This is most belived to be the major cause of earthquake. This movement of plates is believed to be governed by a concept called "the continental drift theory" in which plates are belived to be floating and moving on a flowing semi-molten astenosphere.
3. the third theory is the Lunar pull in which is believed to be caused by the moon gravitational pull on the earth. Absurd,right but there are slight evidence to support this.

(Image gotten from http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu)

Earthquakes, in truth can occur anywhere in world but studies by geologists have discovered that earthquakes in essence occur in place of active seismicity with respect to stabilty of the plates (movement from one another). That is why we would ask ourself "why is earthquakes frequent in North America,Asia boundaries as well as boundaries of some European countries like italy but not in Africa.
Why is this??...The reason is not far fetched .
Most of the earthquakes occuring worldwide occur along 3 major zones on the earth surface namely:-
1)circum pacific seismic zone known as the " Ring of fire. It encompasses the boundaries of chile,mexico and further extends to the boundary of japan.

1. the Himalyan mountain range found around around the Asian and indian plates.
   3)the submerged mid-atlantic ridge found between the african plate and the north american plate.
   Despite the African plate found quite close to the mid oceanic ridge, the tremors from the ridge are found to occur in the south american plate.
   Also the african plate is quite stable as a plate, no major seismic event is recorded to have occurred there. The African plates moves slowly in comparism to other plates. And so,it is an asesmic plate.
   Whether it can be attributed to be God's goodluck or good fortune,the african plates remains to be seen if it can stay stable for the next few decades..

Constructive questions and comments are welcomed
GODSPOWER E. UBIT