Locating Earthquakes Worksheet
A worksheet for 7th-grade science students to learn about locating earthquakes, seismic waves, and seismographs.
Includes
Standards
Topics
Locating Earthquakes
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Date:
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Read each question carefully and answer to the best of your ability. Use complete sentences for short answer questions.
1. What is the point on the Earth's surface directly above the focus of an earthquake called?
Fault line
Epicenter
Focus
Seismic zone
2. Which type of seismic wave travels fastest and arrives first at a seismograph station?
S-waves
Surface waves
P-waves
Love waves
3. Scientists use instruments called to detect and record seismic waves.
4. The method of using data from at least three seismic stations to locate an earthquake's epicenter is called .
5. Explain the difference between an earthquake's focus and its epicenter.
6. Describe how the time difference between the arrival of P-waves and S-waves helps determine the distance to an earthquake's epicenter.
7. S-waves can travel through both solids and liquids.
True
False
8. The Richter scale measures the intensity of an earthquake's shaking.
True
False
9. Look at the image of the seismograph below. What is the primary function of this instrument in earthquake detection?
