Elastic Rebound and Waves: teacher key

Earthquakes, grade 8 edition, written for 8th grade. How does rock snap, and how do waves tell us where? Follow the elastic rebound idea, the four kinds of waves and why no one has predicted a major quake.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. Who came up with the elastic rebound idea?
   • Charles Richter
   • Harry Fielding Reid (answer)
   • Frank Neumann
2. Which waves cannot travel through liquids?
   • S-waves (answer)
   • P-waves
   • Sound waves
3. Who introduced the Richter scale in 1935?
   • Harry Wood
   • Charles Richter (answer)
   • Harry Fielding Reid
4. What does a real earthquake prediction have to give?
   • Only the location
   • The weather and the date
   • The date and time, the location, and the magnitude (answer)
5. Why can seismologists find a quake's location from several stations?
   • Waves reach each station at different times (answer)
   • Every station feels the same shaking
   • Liquids block all waves
6. In liquefaction, what happens to loose, wet sediment?
   • It gains strength
   • It becomes a P-wave
   • It loses its strength (answer)

Words

• seismologists: quake scientists
• liquefaction: ground turning soupy
• subduction: plate sinking under
• magnitude: quake size
• inertia: staying put