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Chapter 1: Earthquakes
As you read this book, somewhere around the world rocks will snap and cause an earthquake, while somewhere else a volcano will erupt. Both earthquakes and volcanoes are the clearest signs that the earth on which we live is not stable but constantly under stresses unimaginably huge.
Earthquakes and volcanoes are hard to predict because they both happen when unseen forces deep within the crust overcome the equally unseen resistance of the
rocks to remain unbroken.
This unpredictablility is why earthquakes and volcanoes can be the causes of both disasters and misery. But they also tell us of profound changes taking place within the earth’s crust. And that is what this book is about: the nature of an earthquake and a volcanic eruption, the landforms each produces, and how both of these features can be explained as part of our understanding of the way the earth works.
By understanding how earthquakes and eruptions occur, it has also been possible to explain much about the landscape around us, and to
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(Above and left) The ground often splits apart during an earthquake, although the fissure
is not deep. It is just one of many surface expressions of something occurring tens of kilometres below the surface.