1. On the west coast of the United States bordering the Pacific Ocean, there is an almost continuous stretch of hazard prone area which we can conclude as earthquake friendly. A couple of areas in Central US and in the East coast have also been identified as hazardous, due to the existence of local fault lines. The San Andreas Fault in the west coast mainly California and the fault lines in Utah are some examples of fault lines.
2. My state of domicile is Texas or to be more accurate I hail from Austin-Texas. From the hazard map, I see that Austin, Texas is relatively free of Earthquake potential and is marked as an area, having the lowest horizontal movement.
As regards the link given allegedly showing world distribution of earthquakes, the same is now relocated at http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
3. From the map of the earthquakes occurring round the world, it appears there is no set pattern vide which we can know that the earthquakes occur in these areas or those areas.
I feel that the following points may be responsible for this haphazard earthquake distribution, which are
(a) Presence of faults on the surface of the earth. Here, tectonic plates require less force to move or slide against each other.
(b) Areas having dormant or active volcanoes.
(c) Certain areas near the oceans (example. bordering the pacific ocean)
Earthquakes are an area, which lacks specialist knowledge of humans. It is quite possible that science will be able to know all about them in the future but as of today, our knowledge is limited.
4. The Haiti Earthquake took place at about 1600 hours on 12 th January 2010. The epicenter was 25 km west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. The magnitude of the earthquake was 7.0 on the Richter scale. The earthquake affected 3 million people while more than 300,000 died.
5. Living in the red hazardous areas though being scary, we should remember that the time period between two earthquakes can easily cross the average life period of a human being. Hence, if in a hazardous area we will be able to avail of a lot of benefits, I would not mind living there.
6. The USGS provides a lot of information on what to do during an earthquake or after an earthquake. These are in the form of publications, which can be downloaded free from the USGS web site on the internet. Safety measures as mentioned in these publications should be carried out.
7. The two most destructive earthquakes in recent times are the
a) 2012 January , Haiti earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0. (3 million people were affected )
(b)and the 2008 Pakistan earthquake having a magnitude of 7.6. People killed about 86,000 to 90,000. Affected area Northern Pakistan.
8. Seismographs are available as tools, which record the intensity of the earthquakes as waves. The higher are the crests of the individual waves the stronger is the earthquake.
9. There are two main differences. Biological Energy involves chemical reactions but geological energy are mainly due to mechanical strains and stresses. Biological Energy is of comparatively small magnitude, whereas tectonic energy is capable of flattening a mountain or making a river change course etc.
(Reference sources are given in the question assignment itself. Other than those no other reference sources have been used)
******
