BY MICHAELA O'BRIEN
1556 Shaanxi, China Earthquake
Red: Shaanxi, China
Yellow: Areas effected by the earthquake
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Shaangxi_1556_earthquake_map_of_provinces.PNG
Geography:
The Shaanxi Earthquake is often referred to as the Jiajing Great Earthquake because it is located in what was sometimes called the Jiajing region. The earthquake occurred on January 23, 1556, in Shaanxi, many homes were destroyed, and many people were killed. Shaanxi is located in the Ming Dynasty in the South Eastern part of China. China is located on the Eurasia Plate which moves eastward and down towards Australia. The epicenter of the Earthquake was in the Wei River Valley in Shaanxi Province.
The event did not take place on a plate boundary, but in a fault. The fault is named the Weihe Basin and is much like the New Madrid Fault Zone in the United States. A fault is a deformation or a crack in the Earth's crust.. There are three different types of faults. Those being, a normal dip-slip fault, a reverse dip slip fault, and a transform fault. The fault in which Shaanxi is located is a normal dip-slip fault. Normal dip-slip faults occur in areas where rocks are pulling apart. It tends to look like on piece of land is sliding off the other. Shaanxi China is located not on top of a continental plate boundary, but on top of a dip-slip fault, which could have been part of the reason shy there was such a deadly earthquake.
normal dip-slip fault
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/earth/geology/images/normalfault_USGS_NPS.gif
Impact of the Earthquake:
The Shaanxi Earthquake was one of the largest natural disasters in history. There were a total of about 839,000 identified casualties and an uncountable amount of unidentified casualties. 60% of the areas effected were killed and buildings and other structures completely destroyed. The magnitude was an 8.0 on the Ritcher Magnitude Scale. 1 Which out of 10, is very intense and destructive. It was also an 11 on the Mercalli Intensity Scale. The earthquake cause ground fissures with water gushing out, uplifts in the ground, landslides, city walls collapsed, and most houses were completely destroyed.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/Valdivia_after_earthquake,_1960.jpg/250px-Valdivia_after_earthquake,_1960.jpg
In 1556 people tended to like in yaodongs, which are artificial caves in loess cliffs. These homes were completely destroyed and many people that did survive were then left homeless. The economy was completely rock bottom and people were starving and needed water. Once you survived the earth quake you had to battle for most of the rest of your life and many even died because of those circumstances. 2
Yaodongs in Loess Cliffs
http://chinablog.cc/wp-content/gallery/residential/yaodong/multi-1.jpg
There were nine different regions that were affected by this massive natural disaster. Those regions included Anhui, Gansu, Hebei, Hubei, Henan, Hunan, Shandong, Shanxi, and Shaanxi, where the earthquake originated. In all of these regions there were 20 meter (66 feet) deep crevices opened in the earth.
http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/19760728tangshan-earthquake640.jpg
Comments (1)
Allison Lamson said
at 1:25 pm on Apr 2, 2010
Michaela,
I love the pictures.
Maybe you could explain the events leading up to the earthquake and events during the earthquake.
I like all the geological info you put in. It helps explain why it happened and such.
Overalll it is GOOOODDDD!!! :D:D:D:D
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