Earthquake Engineering

• a feeble shaking to violent trembling of the ground by the sudden change or displacement of rocks and other materials below the earth's surface.

  earthquake
• this is about reducing the negative impact of any occurrence that causes widespread distress or destruction or consequences in the future.

  disaster management
• the most destructive among the focus which accounts 75% of released energy during earthquake.

  shallow focus
• Magnitude - Method of describing the strength of an earthquake based on instrumentally derived information, and correlates strength with the amount of total energy released at he earth's point of origin.
• Focus - a point from which the seismic wave first emanates.
• Aftershock or S-Waves - a secondary shockwave which is usually more violent than the main shock.
• Dip - Slip Fault - a type of fault which has an inclined surface but slopping by only thirty degree and characterized by the upward sliding of the block located about the fault surface.
• Philippine Fault - one of the major faults which extends 1200 km from Lingayen Gulf in Luzon to Davao Gulf, South of Mindanao.
• Preparedness - refers to activities we do prior to an earthquake to be ready to respond and to recover from significant ground shaking.
• Convergent Plate Margin - two neighboring plates that moves away from each other or are pulled apart.
• Epicenter - the point on the earth's surface situated nearest to where the earthquake originates exactly.
• Charles F. Richter - the American seismologist who devised a scale for expressing the total energy released by an earthquake.
• Asthenosphere - a thin shell beneath the lithosphere which behaves like a wax.
• One to Twelve centimeter per year - the range of rate of movement or relative motion between adjacent plates and fault blocks per year.
• Lithosphere - the earth's outermost shell, about 80 km thick, which is solid and rigid.
• Hazards - a natural phenomenon that might impact a region, regardless of whether there is anyone around to experience it or not.
• Risk - this refers to what we stand to lose when hazards occur.
• Transformation Fault - it is a vertical surface that cuts and breaks the continuity of divergent and convergent plate margins.
• Active Faults - these are faults which have documented history of displacement.
• Seich - it is a standing in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water.