Published in the United States of America by Cherry Lake Publishing Ann Arbor Michigan www cherrylakepublishing com Consultants Jennifer Rivers Cole Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Harvard University Marla Conn ReadAbility Inc Editorial direction Red Line Editorial Book design and illustration Design Lab Photo Credits Sadik Gulec Shutterstock Images cover 1 Anthon Jackson Shutterstock Images 5 Dorling Kindersley Thinkstock 7 10 13 Richard Ward Dorling Kindersley RF Thinkstock 11 Deanne Fitzmaurice San Francisco Chronicle Corbis 14 Design Lab 17 iBird Shutterstock Images 18 AFLO Nippon News Corbis 20 Roger Ressmeyer Corbis 23 Pallava Bagla Corbis 24 Shakil Adil AP Images 27 Copyright 2015 by Cherry Lake Publishing All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sepahban Lois author The science of an earthquake by Lois Sepahban pages cm Disaster science Audience Age 11 Audience Grades 4 to 6 Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978-1-63137-629-0 hardcover ISBN 978-1-63137-674-0 pbk ISBN 978-1-63137-719-8 pdf ebook ISBN 978-1-63137-764-8 hosted ebook 1 Earthquakes Juvenile literature 2 Earthquakes Safety measures Juvenile literature 3 Earthquake prediction Juvenile literature I Title QE521 3 S47 2015 551 22 dc23 2014004035 Cherry Lake Publishing would like to acknowledge the work of The Partnership for 21st Century Skills Please visit www p21 org for more information Printed in the United States of America Corporate Graphics Inc July 2014 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lois Sepahban has taught every grade from kindergarten to high school She grew up in California and remembers waking during the night to the shaking of the Northridge earthquake of 1994 In her free time she reads books writes stories and rescues animals
TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 Rumbling in the Desert 4 CHAPTER 2 What Is an Earthquake 8 CHAPTER 3 How Earthquakes Happen 12 CHAPTER 4 Earthquake Effects 16 CHAPTER 5 Earthquake Safety 22 TOP FIVE WORST EARTHQUAKES 30 LEARN MORE 31 GLOSSARY 32 INDEX 32
21st century skills library 4 Rumbling in the Desert chapter 1 Not many people live in the desert district of Awaran Pakistan Those who do live in mud brick houses A lack of rain makes farming difficult Towns are spread far apart Few regular roads connect the towns Still people make a living in Awaran herding sheep and growing wheat where they can On the morning of September 24 2013 the people of Awaran went about their daily lives There were no clues that this day would be different from the day before There
disaster science 5 Pakistan features beautiful landscapes but its natural disasters can be deadly was no strange weather There were no unusual smells or sounds in the air Everything seemed to be normal About 13 miles 20 km beneath the ground near Awaran though things were not normal Stress was building up in Earth’s crust On September 24 it was ready to explode That afternoon an earthquake began shaking the town Buildings collapsed and roads broke apart People ran from buildings if they could Nearly 500 miles 800 km away in
