Birthday Earthquakes
1. Click on “Earthquake Search” from the links on the left hand side
http://quake.geo.berkeley.edu/anss/catalog-search.html
2. Scroll down to Select Earthquake Parameters on the website
3. Fill in the following information:
a. Date
Enter your birthday, following the correct format, for both lines under where it says date. Make sure to use full colons between the hour, minute and time.
Start date, time: year/month/date,00:00:00
End date, time: year/ month/date,23:59:59
DO NOT PUT IN SPACES
b. Magnitude
Enter 2.5 for Minimum Magnitude, and 10 for Maximum Magnitude
If to many or not enough earthquakes events are shown, adjust the minimum magnitude respectively.
4. DO NOT CHANGE ANY OTHER INFORMATION
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Submit Search” ONE TIME.
6. It may take some time for your list of earthquakes to generate BE PATIENT!!
**if you have less than 30 earthquakes listed, raise your hand and I will help you adjust the magnitude to get enough earthquakes.
7. Once your list is generated, print it and PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.
8. You can begin transferring information to your data sheet. Choose the 30 earthquakes with the largest magnitude for your data.
Directions:
1. Birth date ______
2. Find out the exact time of your birth if you can. Time:______
3. For the LAT (latitude):
a. if the number is positive, put an N by the number (for North)
b. if the number is negative, put an S by the number (for South)
4. For the LON (longitude):
a. If the number is positive, put an E by the number (for East)
b. If the number is negative, put a W by the number (for West)
5. Graph them on your map, using this color code:
a. Mag 2.0 – 3.99 Green
b. Mag 4.0 – 4.99 Blue
c. Mag 5.0 or higher Red
d. Closest E.Q. to Birth Time Yellow
6. Pick out the top two or three earthquakes, closest to your birth time, largest, magnitude, and/or just neat or unusual. Then graph them on a separate map designated for the whole class.
Original Time of earthquake / + -Lat (N or S) / + -
Lon (E or W) / Depth
(Dep) / Magnitude
(Mag) / Color of Dot
1:42
Questions:
Birth Date:______Time:______
Magnitude: Minimum ______Maximum______
1. Using your time of birth, note the time location and magnitude of the earthquake that occurred closest in time.
2. Looking at your map, where are most of the earthquakes located?
3. What type of relationship do you see between magnitude and location?
4. What type of relationship do you see between depth and location?
5. Why don’t we have many earthquakes in North Carolina?
6. Are you surprised by how many earthquakes happened on your birthday? Why or why not?
7. Looking at the data, how many earthquakes do you think happen on an average day around the world? Why do you think that?
8. When and where was the last recordable earthquake in North Carolina? What was its magnitude?
9. Compare your graph with the graph that contains all of the classes’ data, and relate it to maps that have shown earthquake locations. What types of patterns emerge now?