Epicenter Lab

Finding the Epicenter:

	Data Table
City	Difference in P and S waves Arrival Times	Distance to epicenter
Denver, Colorado	2 min 40s	1,400 Km
Houston, Texas	1 min 50s	1,000 Km
Chicago, Illinois	1 min 10s	600 Km

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Results:

The farther away from the epicenter is the longer that the P and S waves will take to reach the arrive. This is why it is important to show the distance between the P and S waves in order for you to find the location of the epicenter. Also when you look at the results the Earthquake where the epicenter was just outside of Denver, you can see it reached all the way to San Francisco (which is, though high earthquake risk area, still quite far from where the earthquake was generated from.

Where I’m from: San Diego, California;

Every year in the state of California about 500 earthquakes big enough to feel strike. Compared to other areas in California San Diego has meager seismicity. Although, since 1984, the quake activity in San Diego county has doubled (over the preceding of 50 years.)

The most famous fault in California is the San Andreas Fault it is a continental fault the runs the length of about 810 miles (1,300 Km) through California (it extends 10 miles in depth into the Earth.). The San Andreas from a tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate.

The largest Earthquake ever recorded in San Francisco, California was in 1906, with a magnitude of 7.8. Though not the largest ever recorded in California history it was certainly the most devastating. The earthquake and resulting fires caused an estimated amount of 3,000 deaths, and a property loss that added up to $524 million. The damage done to San Francisco in a whole was estimated at $20 million. (The duration of the shaking in San Francisco was around 1 minute.)