What caused earthquakes to hit Indonesia and the Pacific Islands.
Several towns and cities located within Indonesia and the Pacific Islands were hit by five major earthquakes on the 29th and 30th of September and in the first week of October. A tsunami, basically a giant tidal wave, caused by earthquakes resulted in panic and unrest as it wiped out entire villages on the Pacific Islands, specifically the islands of Samoa. At least 1470 deaths have been confirmed because of these natural disasters.
The cause of these natural disasters is located within the Ring of Fire, also known as the Pacific Ring of Fire. It is located around the basin of the Pacific Ocean and stretches for 40,000 km in a horseshoe shape. Specifically, it stretches from the coast of South and North America then north across the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, going along the eastern side of Asia and finishing at New Zealand.
The Ring of Fire is active because of the movement of tectonic plates. In short, the theory of tectonic plates is that the Earth’s upper crust is divided up into many pieces that slowly move around away and towards each other. The plates have a traveling distance of about 1 to 10 centimetres every year, which is very slow.
At the edges of these tectonic plates, there are three things that can happen because of their movement: the plates can move away from each other creating new ocean floor (known as a Divergent Boundary), the plates can move towards each other making one plate submerge under the other (known as a Convergent Boundary), or the plates can grind across each other (known as a Transform Boundary). Think of the earth as a giant puzzle, with some pieces being bigger than others.
The activities of each of these boundaries have a chance to create new volcanoes, which explains why 450 volcanoes sit along the Pacific Ring of Fire and how it eventually received its name. The boundaries can also cause earthquakes if the built up tension between two tectonic plates is released. Of course, this tension can take a long time to build up considering the slow moving distance of the plates.
Therefore, the five major earthquakes that occurred in the early week of October are likely caused by the built up tension of the tectonic plates against one another. While we might know what the causes of the earthquakes are, it is still hard for scientists to pinpoint the time when an earthquake will hit. What is presently known is where the weak spots are in the earth’s crust so research can be done to discover more about natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis.
Human impact on the tectonic plates is non-existent. As much as we would like to influence or change the way tectonic plates work so we could prevent earthquakes from harming people, we cannot. Nature is a mysterious and powerful force that can control a lot of our daily activities, whether it is weather, disasters or the change of seasons.
The Ring of Fire will continue to create new volcanoes, wake up dormant ones in its area and have earthquakes on its boundaries very far into the future. While we cannot determine precisely when or how powerful these events will be in the future, we can make sure that if there is some form of warning that is given to us, like a smaller earthquake preceding a bigger one, we’ll know what to do.
So if you decide to go off to visit an exotic place around the Ring of Fire and you’re on a beach and feel an earthquake, take that as a warning from nature and seek higher ground. There’s a good chance that a tsunami could be coming your way.
