Recent large earthquakes in Chile, Haiti, and Japan Essay

Recent large earthquakes in Chile, Haiti, and Japan - Essay Example Earthquakes mainly occur in countries harboring coastal oceanic shores, more predominantly in Asia continent. The region is called ring of fire where arc of earthquakes and volcanic zones stretch at pacific more than 90% of earthquake occurs. The word tsunami comes from a Japanese word meaning harbor wave, literary translated as oceanic gravity waves produced by sub-marine earthquakes or caused by geological processes such as volcanic eruptions and landslides. Tsunamis arise due to subduction occurring underwater resulting to huge raptures raising sea beds to some meters away displacing a huge cubic of waters in coastal areas. The tsunami waves are usually smaller in deep oceans but its impact is felt in harbors and coastal areas thus being catastrophic, in other places it is known as tidal waves or Seismic sea waves (Lee p.437). 2.0. Geology of Chile (2010), Haiti (2010) and Japan (2011) Earthquakes. Chile is among the seismically located countries in the world, facing approximately 8 events after 10 years. The most recent earthquake occurred in 27th February 2010 (Fig 1), it did release energy that had accumulated since the last subduction earthquake in 1835. Figure 1 Chile’s earthquake of 2010 Source: http://www.earthquake-pictures.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/2010 Chile is located in subduction zones along the coast of the Pacific Ocean similar to Japan. It has three well differentiated Seismically zones; thrust earthquakes of larger magnitude at shallow depths along the coast, larger quakes due to larger magnitude as a result of tensional and compressed subducted Nazza plates, and shallow Seismicity in the outer rise (Jiron p2). The earthquake of magnitude 8.8 lasted between 110 and 180 seconds in which rupture started at the hypocenter and spread bilaterally northwards of Pichilemu and kilometers towards the Peninsula, comprising a length of about 450 km long and average slip of about 10-12 cm, destroying all things on the way (Jiron p.16). Haiti is one of the Caribbean countries; on 12th January 2010 an earthquake (Fig. 2) of about 7.0 magnitudes lower than Chile 2010 earthquake occurred in the country. Figure 2 Haiti’s earthquake of 2010. Source: http://www.earthquake-pictures.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/H The quake occurred when tectonic plate of Caribbean shifted approximately 20 millimeters in relation to the North American plate. The cause of the quake was rapture of Ennquillo plantain garden fault, which for about 250 years had locked it. The place where the quake occurred is highly seismic and was recorded historically as a place of destruction earthquake (Farmer p.54). There was an aftershocks of about 4-5 magnitude which occurred after the main quake. Japan is located in a region that faces quakes each and every year; it lies on a region that is baptized ring of fire where an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretch at pacific. The earthquake occurred in 2011; it was measured to have a magnitude of a bout 8.9 which is large compared to both Haiti 2010 and Chile 2010 earthquakes (Fig. 3) it was followed by nuclear crisis in one of its plants (Nanto p.1). Fig. 3 Japan earthquake 2011 Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8375788/Japan-earthquake-what-causes-them.html The earthquake led to a further 23 foot tsunami and 50 more