Earthquakes resources

Students are given a key list of words associated with earthquakes. Student use these and their own knowledge to write a paragraph explaining five key points about earthquakes.

Students are provided with a newspaper article titled 'Gentle quake the latest in swarm' and use this to answer three questions.

This resource requires students to process information on an earthquake. This entails calculating the distance that the recording stations are from an earthquake's epicentre, locating the epicentre, calculating the magnitude, and answering general questions on earthquakes.

Using data from three different locations, students calculate the time difference between the arrival of P and S waves and the distance of each location from an earthquake's epicentre. Students use these distances to locate the epicentre on a map of NZ.

Students are provided with two diagrams, one showing the focus of earthquakes in NZ and the other the Earth's plates. Students interpret these diagrams and use them to answer three short questions.

A diagram representing an area of a civil emergency is provided and students are asked to identify the geological event that has caused this. Students then give six hazards or problems that could result from this geological event.

Students answer questions about how a road moves after an earthquake.

Students to apply their understanding of basic wave behaviour at the sea shore to make an inference about waves in a different but analogous context: to predict where the worst damage might occur in an earthquake.

Students are provided with a diagram and asked to identify the type of geological process that it represents. Students are also required to explain what happened.

Students use the Modified Mercalli intensity scale to assign magnitudes to three described earthquakes. Then they interpret data about the distance from an epicentre, and explain why, from given information, one earthquake might be more damaging than another.

This resource requires students to process information on an earthquake. This entails calculating the distance that the recording stations are from an earthquake's epicentre, locating the epicentre, calculating the magnitude, and answering general questions on earthquakes.