The President of the United States

December 16, 2007

Breanna V

December, 3 2007

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President,

Hello, my name is Breanna and I am writing to you about my work that I have done about earth quakes. I have done some recording for 21 day and I have some information that you would be interested in. Certain areas are prone to earthquakes for different reasons. In this paper I will answer the questions that you asked about 21 days earlier.

The recent earthquakes that have occurred are in Chili, Alaska, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, Papa New Guinea, Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, and Tonga. These areas are near subduction zones or slip-strike areas. In some areas earthquakes are to happen more in particular locations depending on how much time the plates have time to build pressure before they snap causing vibrations (earthquakes).

It is, in a way, possible to determine what parts of the world are more prone to earthquakes. We all know that California is very prone because of the large fault that can be seen from many miles away. The multiple earthquakes that those in California experience everyday, ones that can be felt and the ones that are only known about on a seismograph. But Japan has an under water subduction zone of a great size it is harder to tell because maybe another fault or subduction zone is affecting the data but this why the more experienced scientist have a sure fire way to find the epicenter of the earthquake by making circles and connecting the dots.

Volcanoes and earthquakes are very strongly related but perhaps in ways you might not have heard of. For one thing, if you take a look at a map of earthquakes over the Earth, and compare it to a map of volcanoes, you will see that they match very closely. Does that mean that the volcanoes are causing the earthquakes or the earthquakes are causing the volcanoes? No. Both earthquakes and volcanoes occur at the boundaries of the tectonic plates that make up the surface of the Earth.

What is causing earthquakes happens deep with in the earth and core. Tectonic plates are sliding on a gooey mantel made of melted metals, and the plates hit the other plates and collide, spit apart, or slide past each other. When the plates are sliding past each other it is called a transform or slip-strike fault. When the jagged edges of the plates catch the build pressure b/c they still want to move. When they build so much pressure, they will slip or break away and that will cause vibrations other wise known as earthquakes. The real magic really happens in the mantel and core. Radio active decay and heat from the core make convection currents move the plates in the direction of current. Convection currents are rotations of hot magma that start by heating close to the core and rise to the middle mantle and when they reach near the crust they cool and start to sink and the process is repeated many times.

Thank you for having the time to reading my paper answering your questions and for assigning me this job. I’m very thank-full for this opportunity. I hope that I would be of use in the later future and any other experiments.

Sincerely,

Breanna Vogel

Lead scientist-USGS