Science, Maths & Technology
Earthquakes
...system waiting to go off. Eventually the distortion is enough to cause the rock to break and move, releasing energy in the form of an earthquake. The break is called a fault. It starts as a small fracture (Figure 2c), but grows rapidly (Figure 2d). In general, the larger the area of the fault, the greater is the size of the earthquake. The fault length (the length of the...