• Question: why do earthquakes happen more abroad then in the UK

    Asked by howe7r2 to Drew, Amy, Julia, Kimberley, Sara on 20 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by jberg, mvenkataraman, melissamartin123, eviej26.
    • Photo: Drew Rae

      Drew Rae answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      The earth’s crust is made up of tectonic plates, which are like pieces of jigsaw put together in a sphere around the molten core of the earth. The places where they join are where earthquakes tend to happen as the plates slide against each other, or push against or away from each other (or sometimes move over and under each other).

      The nearest plate borders to England are the Mediteranean Sea (where the Eurasian plate hits the African Plate) and the middle of the Atlantic (where the Eurasian Plate hits the North American Plate).

      There is a small crack in the Eurasian plate that runs through the North Sea and just touches Scotland, but it isn’t as active as the big plate borders.

      There are other ways to cause small earthquakes, but the biggest and most frequent earthquakes happen along the fault lines between plates.

    • Photo: Amy MacQueen

      Amy MacQueen answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      Drew gave you a brilliant answer!

    • Photo: Sara Imari Walker

      Sara Imari Walker answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Hello! Agreed, Drew’s answer is great!!

    • Photo: Julia Griffen

      Julia Griffen answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      It;s because we’re not near any techtonic plate edges. The techtonic plates are the pieces of the earths crust that move under over and against each other. San fransico, and japan are really close to the edges of the plates where the movement is happening. Closer you are to the edges the move of the ‘friction’ or ‘movement’ they feel in the form of earthquakes or tusanamis (which are earthquakes under the sea)

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