Learning Center: Learn About Earthquakes
The Quake-Catcher Network is designed to be an educational tool for describing earthquakes and earthquake science in the classroom. For this purpose, we include a demonstration program called QCNLive for learning using lesson plans. QCNLive is a free program and can be downloaded from this webpage.
Seismology
Seismology is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth. Earthquakes occur when a large amount of energy that is built up over time suddenly get released. The Earth's crust and upper mantle are made up of many plates that are in slow, but constant motion. Most of the time there is little to no motion at plate boundaries, so forces build as plates try to slide by each other. Occasionally, the stress becomes too great, and large fault zones at the plate boundaries cause sudden and violent movements. There are three major types of faults, 1) strike-slip, 2) normal, and 3) reverse (shown to the right).