Presentations

PowerPoint presentations introducing fundamental concepts of Plate Tectonics and Earthquakes. May be used either as learning aids for educators or edited for their own presentations.

Plate Tectonics

Earthquake Seismology

Presentation Guide

Activities

Human Waves Demo How Seismic Waves Travel

This simple interactive demonstration uses the audience to send seismic waves through a line of people to illustrate the difference between P waves and S waves.

Activity Instructions

Animations: Seismic Wave Motions – Primary [.mov], Secondary [.mov], Raleigh [.mov], Love [.mov]

Animation: Building Response to Seismic Waves

Teaching about Faults Using Foam Faults

This simple demonstration shows how tectonic plates move under compression and extension and helps learners visualize the forces that shape our landscape.

Activity Instructions

Video of classroom demonstration

Related animations

World Tectonic Boundaries Mapping

The Plate Tectonics Mapping Activity allows learners to easily begin to identify basic tectonic processes on a global scale. As they become aware of plate movements, learners begin to identify patterns that set the stage for deeper understanding of a very complex topic.

Activity Instructions

Seismic Waves and the Slinky(c)

Slinkies are a good tool for modeling the behavior of seismic waves.

Activity Instructions

Video of activity in a classroom

Earthquake Machine

This block & sandpaper setup models friction and elastic rebound to help learners better understand the earthquake cycle of elastic energy storage and release.

Activity Instructions

Animations of earthquake models

Pasta Quake and Earthquake Magnitude

This activity helps learners understand the concept of earthquake magnitude by breaking different size bundles of uncooked spaghetti noodles. The animation explains the difference between Richter Earthquake Magnitude and the newer Moment Magnitude.

Activity Instructions

Animation: Earthquake Magnitude (Moment vs Richter)

Presentations

Earthquake Hazards

Tsunami Hazards

Activities

Earthquake Hazard Maps and Liquefaction

Relative earthquake hazard maps compare the expected violence of earthquake ground shaking and likely damage over a region of interest. These maps are usually a combination of several different earthquake hazards such as landslide, liquefaction, and shaking amplification potential into one map. 

Activity Instructions

Animations of liquefaction and amplification 

Build a Better Wall

The activity is adapted from the Seismic Sleuths earthquake guide. The lesson is “designed to allow learners to construct an understanding of how buildings respond to earthquakes. Lessons on design and how earthquake forces act on various designs provide learners with information on how to build earthquake resistance structures.”

Activity Instructions

Video of classroom building strength demonstration

Animations: Building strength – Building Collapse , Retrofitted

Investigating Tsunami Inundation Factors

Students use tsunami wave tanks to learn about the effect that both near-coast bathymetry (submarine topography) and coastal landforms have on how a tsunami travels inland.

Presentations

Presentation introducing fundamental concepts of Earthquake and Tsunami that are particularly tailored for the Pacific Northwest region (Cascadia). May be used either as learning aids for educators or edited for their own presentations. Associated animations are included as separate files.

Cascadia Earthquakes and Tsunami presentation

Associated animations:

• Japan 2011 Tsunami NOAA
• Making of a Ghost Forest
• Turbidity Flow [.mov]
• Cascadia Turbidite History
• GPS and Future Earthquakes [.mp4]
• Episodic Tremor and Slip
• Types of Subduction Zone Movement [.mov]
• Earthquake Early Warning System Cascadia [.mp4]
• Tsunamis Generated by Megathrust Earthquakes

Native American Indigenous Oral Histories and Disaster Preparedness presentation

Associated videos:

• Run to High Ground
• Thunder Bird and Killer Whale: a Tillimook Indian Legend
• Creation Story of Gabrielino-Tongva People of California

 Activities

Cascadia Tsunami Geology

The last megathrust Cascadia subduction zone earthquake occurred on January 26, 1700. Important evidence for this lies in geologic layers found along coastal Cascadia. In this guided-inquiry activity, learners examine a large photo of geologic layers that spectacularly records the 1700 megathrust Cascadia earthquake and tsunami.

Investigating Tsunami Inundation Factors

Students use tsunami wave tanks to learn about the effect that both near-coast bathymetry (submarine topography) and coastal landforms have on how a tsunami travels inland.

Turbidities in a Jar

Turbidity currents were formed when past Cascadia megathrust earthquakes shook the continental margin and sent torrents of sediment down submarine canyons and out onto the continental slope and rise. The resulting turbidite layers provide marine geologists with a record of past megathrust Cascadia earthquakes.  By modeling turbidite formation in a jar, learners can investigate how “graded beds” are formed by turbulent undersea landslides and mudflows (turbidity currents).

Cupcake Geology

This activity helps learners learn how sediment cores can be used to decipher geologic history by “coring” into a cupcake. In CEETEP, we relate this to cores of turbidite layers in ocean sediments giving record of past megathrust Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes but it is also widely applicable to many geological applications of coring. 

Pacific Northwest Fault Block Model

Through this activity, learners can investigate the motions of crustal blocks in the Pacific Northwest and relate these to the tectonics of western North America. Paleomagnetic and GPS observations were used to determine how crustal blocks of this region slide past eachother. The resulting earthquakes that occur on crustal faults near or immediately beneath densely populated cities of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia are a major risk.

Tsunami in Native American Oral Tradition 

Native Americans have been living in the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years and have experienced numerous megathrust Cascadia earthquakes. Because they are astute observers of landscape and nature, it is not surprising that Native Americans recorded these earthquakes and the accompanying tsunamis in their oral histories. This “activity” is a collection of resources that educators can use to connect their learners’ studies of Earth Science to history and culture by using Native Americans’ oral histories. 

Information and Maps

Introduction to Pacific Northwest Plate Tectonics, Earthquakes, and Volcanoes

Document provides a brief (12 page) introduction to regional plate tectonics, earthquakes, and volcanoes of the Pacific Northwest. The focus is mainly on the subduction zone (coast to Cascade Mountains) because that is where most of the earthquakes and volcanoes occur, and where tsunamis can be generated.

Pacific Northwest Tectonic Setting and Geology Poster

This poster includes maps of the physical geography, bedrock geology, physiographic provinces, and tectonics of Washington and Oregon.

Pacific Northwest Plate Tectonics Map and Cross-section

This CEETEP poster includes a schematic map and cross-section of Cascadia plate tectonics.

Presentations

USArray Visualizations

Introduction to Reading GPS Plots

Episodic Tremor and Slip ("Slow" slip earthquakes)

Animation: Types of Motion in a Subduction Zone

Recent data from the Pacific Northwest and other subduction zones show that there are 3 distinct areas of movement above a subduction zone: 1) constant inland movement above the locked plate edge, 2) see-saw pattern of back-&-forth movement above a zone that alternately locks then slips in a process called episodic tremor and slip, and 3) no movement far inland above the deeper part of the diving oceanic plate.

Animation: Episodic Tremor and Slip (ETS) 

This animation shows a close-up of the movement recorded at a GPS station over an ETS region of a subduction boundary. Here we see the station fixed to the ground which is moving northeast on a ~14-month cycle before sliding back accompanied by a gentle seismic shaking shown in the seismogram. Researcher hypothesize that subduction zones are at higher risk of earthquake rupture during periods of ETS.

Animation: What GPS Tells us About Future Earthquakes 

This animation compares the subduction zone east of Japan with a mirror-image subduction zone across the Pacific—the Cascadia subduction zone off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. Using GPS, we can watch the surface of the Earth deform in response to the drag of one tectonic plate going under another and clearly observe the deformation occurring in Cascadia that will inevitably lead to more megathrust earthquake and tsunami. 

Animation: GPS and Earthquake Early Warning Systems 

What makes for an effective earthquake early warning system? With seismic data alone, we cannot determine the magnitude and rupture area of megathrust earthquakes as quickly and effectively as we can with the addition of GPS data. In this animation, we see why Japan's earthquake early warning system underestimated the magnitude of the March 11, 2011 Japan earthquake, leading to underestimates of the earthquake's effects, such as tsunami size. 

Activities

USArray Seismic Wave Visualizations Educator Guide 

These animations show how the ground responds when seismic waves from worldwide earthquakes sweep across more than 400 sensitive seismograph stations of USArray, the seismologic component of EarthScope. The associated documentation support an educator in including this content in their class.

Educator Guide

Related Presentation

USArray Visualizations: China 2008, Nevada 2008, Haiti 2010 

Introduction to GPS (GPS “gumdrop” activity)

This activity allows learners to analyze high-precision GPS observations of deformation of the North American Plate in Cascadia. Learners analyze the rates of motion of three GPS receiving stations at different distances from the Cascadia subduction zone boundary and see how the slowly accumulating elastic energy will be released in the next Cascadia megathrust earthquake!

Original Activity Instructions

Revised 2016 Student Worksheet
Revised 2016 Instructor Notes

"How to access data from your nearest GPS station" 

GPS Part 2 - Locked and Loading

This activity is an enhancement of the GPS Gumdrop activity. It is intended for educators who wish to provide their learners with a more complete spatial picture of deformation of the Pacific Northwest continental margin. 

Episodic Tremor and Slip (ETS)

Through this activity, learners can learn about an exciting discovery made possible by invention of high-precision GPS receivers and deployment of these receivers across the Pacific Northwest. This activity can be used to illustrate how invention of new technologies can lead to new scientific discoveries that would have been impossible without the new instruments; a good lesson in how science works.

GPS Cards

These simple cards showing annual GPS station movements along Cascadia over the last decade or more offer a excellent locally-based confirmation that the ground below the coastal Pacific Northwest is moving and more megathrust earthquakes will inevitably occur.

Washington transect
Aberdeen, WA (coastal)
Elma, WA (near field)
Lind, WA (inland)

Northern Oregon transect
Newport, OR (coastal)
Corvallis, OR (near field)
Redmond, OR (inland)

Southern Oregon transect
Bandon, OR (coastal)
Winston, OR (near field)
Silver Lake, OR (inland)

Northern California
Arcata, CA (coastal)

Activity instructions for a related exercise combining nine stations' data

Presentations

Activities

Planning and Emergency Backpack

This three-part activity walks participants through planning an emergency backpack and other steps to prepare for surviving and earthquake and tsunami.

Earthquake Hazard Inventory and Mitigation Planning

Learners complete a hazard inventory of their community and identify critical infrastructure most likely to be affected by an earthquake and tsunami.

Tsunami Vertical Evacuation Structures

This four-part activity provides learners an opportunity to learn about Tsunami Vertical Evacuation Structures (TVES) and to apply their learning to situating and designing their own TVES.

Activity Instructions

Video: FEMA Tsunami Vertical Evacuation Shelters

Information and Maps

Washington

• Emergency Management Division
• Tsunami preparedness resources
• Tsunami Inundation Maps

Oregon

• Office of Emergency Management
• Tsunami Evacuation Maps
• Tsunami Inundation Maps

DOGAMI  The Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries
Location for Oregon Tsunami Inundation Maps, Relative Earthquake Hazard Maps, Living on Shaky Ground booklet and Oregon Tsunami Clearing House for Evacuation Brochures. 

EarthScope  EarthScope
The program within the National Science Foundation (NSF) that funds CEETEP.

HMSC  Hatfield Marine Science Center
Part of Oregon State University, the HMSC Visitors Center in Newport, OR has multiple interactive exhibits featuring Cascadia Great Earthquakes and Tsunamis 

IRIS  Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology
Location for animations and Recent Earthquake Teachable Moments. IRIS runs the USArray seismic component of EarthScope

RCTWG  Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group
Provides a model to enable communities to work cooperatively and share resources to strengthen earthquake and tsunami resilience.

SCEC  Southern California Earthquake Center
Location for “The Great Shake Out” earthquake drill and resources and colloborator on the Quake-Catcher Network (QCN) seismic network.

TOTLE Teachers on the Leading Edge
A previously funded EarthScope project that did professional development workshop for middle school teachers in Oregon and Washington. Many TOTLE resources are used in CEETEP.

UNAVCO  UNAVCO is the National Science Foundation's geodetic facility.
One major project UNAVCO runs is the Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) component of EarthScope, which uses high precision GPS to measure earth deformation. UNAVCO also has educational resources related to GPS and other geodetic measurements.

USGS   U.S. Geological Survey
Location of USGS Geologic Hazards Science Center

WA DNR  Washington State Department of Natural Resources
Location for Tsunami Hazard Maps, Earthquake Hazard Maps, and Interactive Tsunami Evacuation Maps