An Introduction To Earthquakes
The magnitude (MW) 7.8 earthquake that occurred in Turkey and Syria was the largest the region has seen since 1939. The earthquake caused devastation to an area of over 140,000 square miles, and is the deadliest natural disaster in Turkey’s modern history. As such, it is important to understand why earthquakes happen, and what can be done to minimize damage—whether in terms of infrastructure or human injuries and fatalities.
Most earthquakes occur on transform tectonic plate boundaries, which is where two sections of the earth’s crust, or upper layer, are moving in opposite directions against each other, as opposed to towards or away from each other. As the plates move against each other, stress is built up, until energy is suddenly released in the form of an earthquake. You can think of it like a rubber band stretching until it is released and snaps back, with the amount of tension exerted on the rubber band correlating to the strength of the snap. This is why some earthquakes are stronger and cause more damage than others—they are releasing a greater amount of built-up energy.
The Richter Scale is a quantitative measure of an earthquake’s magnitude that is based on the amplitude detected by a seismograph from various distances away from the epicenter of the earthquake, and it is the most known type of earthquake magnitude scale. However, it is not the one most experts use to measure modern earthquakes. This is the “moment magnitude scale”, which was defined 40 years after the Richter Scale, in 1979. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the moment magnitude of an earthquake is found by converting the “moment” of the earthquake, which is a quantity related to the total energy the earthquake releases that can be estimated from seismograms, into a number through a standard formula.
Often, the most severe consequence of an earthquake can be the damage it causes to structures and buildings. Because of this, architects in earthquake-prone areas must design structures with certain precautions in mind, to minimize the effect an earthquake will have. One of these methods of seismic protection, known as base isolation, involves a separation of the main structure from its base or foundation, which allows for the amount of seismic energy the main structure receives to be greatly reduced. Designs that incorporate base isolation have likely saved thousands of lives and prevented billions of dollars of damage during past earthquakes.
Unfortunately, for earthquakes of exceptionally high magnitudes, there is nothing that can be done about the inevitable destruction that will occur. This is likely to happen with earthquakes that are above magnitude 6, and the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake had a much higher magnitude. According to PBS, it is estimated that over 110,000 buildings were destroyed by the earthquake, with a death toll of over 45,000, demonstrating the destruction of our natural world.