Earthquakes in Movies
GEOGRAPHY @ THE
MOVIES: EARTHQUAKES
Right: Image of the world’s plates. Earthquakes nomrally occur in faults, which is where 2 plates meet.
2012’s earthquake: Hollywood fancy or serious possibility?
Roland Emmerich, director of previous
Hollywood blockbusters ‘Godzilla’ (1998) and ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ (2004), has brought us a new disaster film named
‘2012’. Having proved (and been criticized about) he is familiar with using digital visual effects, he shows us he is no stranger to cinematic disasters in directing a new film about a man attempting to bring his family to refugee and to try to escape the planet’s heightened change in the elements. The story is based on the idea that the end of the Mayan calendar on December 21st,
2012 foretells an apocalypse.
The film features volcanic eruptions, floods, tsunamis- and a 10.9 earthquake that rips
California apart.
1
First of all: what are earthquakes?
Earthquakes are sudden (and sometimes, violently destructive) shakings of the ground caused by moving plates. Our planet’s seemingly stable surface is actually made up of slowly moving pieces of rock.
The earth’s crust is made up of several pieces called plates. The plates under the oceans are called oceanic plates and the rest are continental plates. Most earthquakes occur along the edges of the oceanic and continental plates. For example, earthquakes often occur along the west coast of North America, Alaska, Japan and the Philippines.
Seismic waves are recorded by seismographs
The quake is felt most strongly at the epicenter
Left: Diagram of the anatomy of an earthquake. Earthquakes happen when two plates get stuck whilst moving and the pressure is released. The point inside the earth’s crust where the pressure is released is called the focus . The epicenter is the point on the earth’s surface directly above the focus. As earthquake energy is released in seismic waves, they spread out from the
MOVIES: EARTHQUAKES
Right: Image of the world’s plates. Earthquakes nomrally occur in faults, which is where 2 plates meet.
2012’s earthquake: Hollywood fancy or serious possibility?
Roland Emmerich, director of previous
Hollywood blockbusters ‘Godzilla’ (1998) and ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ (2004), has brought us a new disaster film named
‘2012’. Having proved (and been criticized about) he is familiar with using digital visual effects, he shows us he is no stranger to cinematic disasters in directing a new film about a man attempting to bring his family to refugee and to try to escape the planet’s heightened change in the elements. The story is based on the idea that the end of the Mayan calendar on December 21st,
2012 foretells an apocalypse.
The film features volcanic eruptions, floods, tsunamis- and a 10.9 earthquake that rips
California apart.
1
First of all: what are earthquakes?
Earthquakes are sudden (and sometimes, violently destructive) shakings of the ground caused by moving plates. Our planet’s seemingly stable surface is actually made up of slowly moving pieces of rock.
The earth’s crust is made up of several pieces called plates. The plates under the oceans are called oceanic plates and the rest are continental plates. Most earthquakes occur along the edges of the oceanic and continental plates. For example, earthquakes often occur along the west coast of North America, Alaska, Japan and the Philippines.
Seismic waves are recorded by seismographs
The quake is felt most strongly at the epicenter
Left: Diagram of the anatomy of an earthquake. Earthquakes happen when two plates get stuck whilst moving and the pressure is released. The point inside the earth’s crust where the pressure is released is called the focus . The epicenter is the point on the earth’s surface directly above the focus. As earthquake energy is released in seismic waves, they spread out from the