THE INTERRUPTED CHARACTER OF EARTH MOVEMENTS: EARTHQUAKES AND SEAQUAKES

Nature of earthquake shocks.—Man’s belief in the stability of Mother Earth—the terra firma—is so inbred in his nature that even a light shock of earthquake brings a rude awakening. The terror which it inspires is no doubt largely to be explained by this disillusionment from the most fundamental of his beliefs. Were he better advised, the long periods of quiet which separate earthquakes, and not the lighter shocks which follow all grander disturbances, would occasion him concern.

Earthquakes are the sensible manifestations of changes in level or of lateral adjustments of portions of the continents, and the seismic disturbances upon the sea—seaquakes and seismic sea waves—relate to similar changes upon the floor of the ocean.

During the grander or catastrophic earthquakes, the changes are indeed terrifying, and have usually been accompanied by losses to life and property, which are only to be compared with those of great conflagrations or of inundations on thickly populated plains. The conflagration has all too frequently been an aftermath of the great historic earthquakes. The earthquake of December 28, 1908, in southern Italy, destroyed almost the entire population of a great city, and left of its massive buildings only a confused heap of rubble (Fig. 49). Two years later a heavy earthquake resulted in great damage to cities in Costa Rica (Fig. 50), while two years earlier our own country was first really awakened to the danger in which it stands from these convulsive earth throes; though, as we shall see, these dangers can be largely met through proper methods of construction.

Earthquakes are usually preceded for a brief instant by subterranean rumblings whose intensity appears to bear no relation to the shocks which follow. The ground then rocks in wavelike motions, which, if of large amplitude, may induce nausea, prevent animals from keeping upon their feet, and wreck all structures not specially adapted to withstand them. Heavy bodies are sometimes thrown up from the ground (Fig. 51), and at other times similar heavy masses are, apparently because of their inertia, more deeply imbedded in the earth. Thus gravestones and heavy stone posts are often sunk more deeply in the ground and are surrounded by a hollow and perhaps by small open cracks in the surface (Fig. 52). When bodies are thrown upward, it would imply that a quick upward movement of the ground had been suddenly arrested, while the burial of heavy bodies in the earth is probably due to a movement which begins suddenly and is less abruptly terminated.

Seaquakes and seismic sea waves.—Upon the ocean the quakes which emanate from the sea floor are felt on shipboard as sudden joltings which produce the impression that the ship has struck upon a shoal, though in most instances there is no visible commotion in the water. The distribution of these shocks, as indicated either by the experiences of neighboring ships at the time of a particular shock, or by the records of vessels which at different times have sailed over an area of frequent seismic disturbance, appears to be limited to narrow zones or lines (Fig. 53). The same tendency of under-sea disturbances to be localized upon definite straight lines has been often illustrated by the behavior of deep-sea cables which are laid in proximity to one another and which have been known to part simultaneously at points ranged upon a straight line.

Far grander disturbances upon the floor of the ocean have been revealed by the great sea waves—the so-called “tidal waves”, properly referred to as tsunamis—which recur in those sea districts which adjoin the special earthquake zones upon the continents (p. 86). The forerunner of such a sea wave approaching the shore is usually a sudden withdrawal of the water so as to lay bare a portion of the bottom, but this is well-recognized to be the premonition of a gigantic oncoming wave which sweeps all before it and is only halted when it has rolled over all the low-lying country and encountered a mountain wall. Such seismic waves have been especially common upon the Pacific shore of South America and upon the Japanese littoral (Fig. 54). These waves proceed from above the great deeps upon the ocean bottom, and clearly result from the grander earth movements to which these depressions owe their exceptional depth. The withdrawal of the water from neighboring shores may be presumed to be connected with a descent of the floor of the depression and the consequent drawing-in of the ocean surface above. The later high wave would thus represent the dispersion of the mountain of water which is raised by the meeting of the waters from the different sides of the depression.

The grander and the lesser earth movements.—Upon the land the grander and so-called catastrophic earthquakes are usually the accompaniment of important changes in the surface of the ground that will be discussed in later sections. Those shocks which do little damage to structures produce no visible changes in the earth’s surface, except, it may be, to shake down some water-soaked masses of earth upon the steeper slopes. Still other movements, and these too slight to be felt even in the night when the animal world is at rest, may yet be distinguished by their sounds, the unmistakable rumblings which are characteristic alike of the heaviest and the lightest of earthquake shocks.

Changes in the earth’s surface during earthquakes—faults and fissures.—Each of the grander among historic earthquakes has been accompanied by noteworthy changes in the configuration of the earth’s surface within the district where the shocks were most intense. A section of the ground is usually found to have moved with reference to another upon the other side of a vertical plane which is usually to be seen; we have here to do with the actual making of a fault or displacement such as we find the fossil examples of within the rocks. The displacement, or throw, upon the fault plane may be either upward or downward or laterally in one direction or the other, or these movements may be combined. A movement of adjacent sections of the ground upward or downward with reference to each other (Fig. 55) has been often observed, notably at Midori after the great Japanese earthquake of 1891, and in the Chedrang valley of Assam after the earthquake of 1897 (Fig. 56).

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A lateral throw, unaccompanied by appreciable vertical displacement (Fig. 57), is especially well illustrated by the fault in California which was formed during the earthquake of 1906 (Fig. 58). A combination of the two types of displacement in one (Fig. 59) is exemplified by the Baishiko fault of Formosa at the place shown in plate 3 A.

The measure of displacement.—To afford some measure of the displacements which have been observed upon earthquake faults, it may be stated that the maximum vertical throw measured upon the fault in the Neo valley of Japan (1891) was 18 feet, in the Chedrang valley of Assam (1897) 35 feet, and of the Alaskan coast (1899) 47 feet. Large sections of land were bodily uplifted in these cases within the space of a few seconds, or at most a few minutes, by the amounts given. The largest recorded lateral displacement measured upon an earthquake fault is about 21 feet upon the California rift after the earthquake of 1906; though an amount only slightly less than this is indicated in the shifting of roads and arroyas dating from the earthquake of 1872 in the Owens valley, California. Fault lines once established are planes of special weakness and become later the seat of repeated movements of the same kind.

The greater number of earthquake faults are found in the loose rock cover which so generally mantles the firmer rock basement, and it is almost certain that the throws within the solid rock are considerably larger than those which are here measured at the surface, owing to the adjustments which so readily take place in the looser materials. Those lighter shocks of earthquake which are accompanied by no visible displacements at the surface do, however, in some instances affect in a measure the flow of water upon the surface, and thus indicate that small changes of surface level have occurred without breaks sufficiently sharp to be perceived (Fig. 60). Intermediate between the steep escarpment and the masked displacement just described is the so-called “mole-hill” effect,—a rounded and variously cracked slope or ridge above the position of a buried fault (Fig. 61).

The escarpments due to earthquake faults in loose materials at the earth’s surface can obviously retain their steepness for a few years or decades at the most; for because of their verticality they must gradually disappear in rounded slopes under the action of the elements. Smaller displacements within a rock which rapidly disintegrates under the action of frost and sun will likewise before long be effaced. In those exceptional instances where a resistant rock type has had all altered upper layers planed away until a fresh and hard surface is exposed, and has further been protected from the frost and sun beneath a thin layer of soil, its original surface may be retained unaltered for many centuries. Upon such a surface the lightest of sensible shocks, or even the smaller earth movements which are not perceived at the time, may leave an almost indelible record. Such records particularly show that the movements which they register occur upon the planes of jointing within the rock, and that these ready formed cracks have probably been the seats of repeated and cumulative adjustments (Fig. 62).

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Contraction of the earth’s surface during earthquakes.—The wide variations in the amount of the lateral displacement upon earthquake faults, like those opened in California in 1906, show that at the time of a heavy earthquake there must be large local changes in the density of the surface materials. Literally, thousands of fissures may appear in the lowlands, many of them no doubt a secondary effect of the shaking, but others, like the quebradas of the southern Andes or the “earthquake cracks” in the Colorado desert (Fig. 63), may have a deeper-seated origin. Many facts go to show, however, that though local expansion does occur in some localities, a surface contraction is a far more general consequence of earth movement. In civilized countries of high industrial development, where lines of metal of one kind or another run for long distances beneath or upon the surface of the ground, such general contraction of the surface may be easily proven. Comparatively seldom are lines of metal pulled apart in such a way as to show an expansion of the surface; whereas bucklings and kinkings of the lines appear in many places to prove that the area within which they are found has, as a whole, been reduced.

Water pipes laid in the ground at a depth of some feet may be bowed up into an arch which appears above the surface; lines of curbing are raised into broken arches, and the tracks of railways are thrown into local loops and kinks which imply a very considerable local contraction of the surface (Fig. 64). With unvarying regularity railway or other bridges which cross rivers or ravines, if the structures are seriously damaged, indicate that the river banks have drawn nearer together at the time of the disturbance. In such cases, whenever the bridge girder has remained in place upon its abutments, these have either been broken or back-tilted as a whole in such a manner as to indicate an approach of the foundations which was prevented at the top by the stiffness of the girder (Fig. 65).

The simplest explanation of such an approach of the banks at the sides of the valleys cut in loose surface material is to be found in a general closing up of the joint spaces within the underlying rock, and an adjustment of the mantle upon the floor mainly in the valley sections (Fig. 66).

The plan of an earthquake fault.—In our consideration of earthquake faults we have thus far given our attention to the displacement as viewed at a single locality only. Such displacements are, however, continued for many miles, and sometimes for hundreds of miles; and when now we examine a map or plan of such a line of faulting, new facts of large significance make their appearance. This may be well illustrated by a study of the plan of the Chedrang fault which appeared at the time of the Assam earthquake of 1897 (Fig. 67). From this map it will be noticed that the upward or downward displacement upon the perpendicular plane of the fault is not uniform, but is subject to large and sudden changes. Thus in order the measurements in feet are 32, 0, 18, 35, 0, 8, 25, 12, 8, 2, 0. The fault formed in 1899 upon the shores of Russell Fjord in Alaska (Fig. 68) reveals similar sudden changes of throw, only that here the direction of the movement is often reversed; or, otherwise expressed, the upthrow is suddenly transferred from one side of the fault to the other. Such abrupt changes in the direction of the displacement have been observed upon many earthquake faults, and a particularly striking one is represented in Fig. 69.

The block movements of the disturbed district.—The displacements upon earthquake faults are thus seen to be subdivided into sections, each of which differs from its neighbors upon either side and is sharply separated from them, at least in many instances. These points of abrupt change of displacement are, in many cases at least, the intersection points with transverse faults (Fig. 69). Such points of abrupt change in the degree or in the direction of the displacement may be, when looked at from above, abrupt turning points in the direction of extension of the fault, whose course upon the map appears as a zigzag line made up of straight sections connected by sharp elbows (Fig. 70).

Such a grouping of surface faults as are represented upon the map is evidence that the area of the earth’s shell, which is included, has at the time of the earthquake been subject to adjustments as a series of separate units or blocks, certain of the boundaries of which are the fault lines represented. The changes in displacement measured upon the larger faults make it clear that the observed faults can represent but a fraction of the total number of lines of displacement, the others being masked by variations in the compactness of the loose mantling deposits. Could we but have this mantle removed, we should doubtless find a rock floor separated into parts like an ancient Pompeiian pavement, the individual blocks in which have been thrown, some upward and some downward, by varying amounts. Less than a hundred miles away to the eastward from the Owens Valley, a portion of this pavement has been uncovered in the extensive operations of the Tonapah Mining District, so that there we may study in all its detail the elaborate pattern of earth marquetry (Fig. 71) which for the floor of the Owens valley is as yet denied us.

The earth blocks adjusted during the Alaskan earthquake of 1899.—For a study of the adjustments which take place between neighboring earth blocks during a great earthquake, the recent Alaskan disturbance has offered the advantage that the most affected district was upon the seacoast, where changes of level could be referred to the datum of the sea’s surface. Here a great island and large sections of the neighboring shore underwent movements both as a whole in large blocks and in adjustments of their subordinate parts among themselves (Fig. 72). Some sections of the coast were here elevated by as much as 47 feet, while neighboring sections were uplifted by smaller amounts (Fig. 73), and certain smaller sections were even dropped below the level of the sea.

The amount of such subsidence is, however, difficult to ascertain, for the reason that the former shore features are now covered with water and thus removed from observation. In favorable localities the minimum amount of submergence may sometimes be measured upon forest trees which are now flooded with sea water. In Fig. 74 a portion of the coast is represented where the beach sand is now extended back into the spruce forest, a distance of a hundred feet or more, and where sedgy beach grass is growing among trees whose roots are now laved in salt water. At the front of this forest the great storm waves overturn the trees and pile the wreckage in front of those that still remain standing.

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Upon the glaciated rock surfaces of the Alaskan coast, exceptionally favorable opportunities are found for study of the intricate pattern of the earth mosaic which is under adjustment at the time of an earthquake. Upon Gannett Nunatak the surface was found divided by parallel faults into distinct slices which individually underwent small changes of level (plate 3 B).

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