BICOL UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
LEGAZPI CITY

CE 413
EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING
LESSON 1:
CAUSES OF EARTHQUAKES AND TECTONIC PLATES
“This presentation is not for distribution outside this subject and to be used
solely for this course subject – CE 413.”

PREPARED BY:
ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE
Faculty
ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE
FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 1
Objectives
After the discussion in this chapter, the student will be able to:
1. Explain the general causes/ effects of earthquakes on the built environment
2. Describe the main source of earthquakes.
3. List the different types of earthquakes.
4. Explain tectonic plate movement.
5. Learn the different fault mechanisms
6. Differentiate the different types of seismic waves.

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 2
 Earthquake Characteristics
Causes of Earthquake
Earthquake
• A weak to violent shaking of the ground produced by the sudden movement of rock
materials below the earth’s surface ([Link]).

• Manifested as ground shaking caused by the sudden released of energy in the

Earth's crust which may originate from different sources such as:
a. dislocations of the crust
b. volcanic eruptions
c. man-made explosions
d. collapse of underground cavities (e.g. mines or karst)

• Defined as natural/ Earth’s disturbance.

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE
FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 3
 Fig 1.0 Earth Disturbance

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE 4

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 4
Source: Elnasahi and Di Sarno, 2008
 2 Types of earthquakes:

• Tectonic earthquake – produced by sudden movement

along faults and plate boundaries.

• Volcanic earthquake – induced by rising lava or magma

beneath active volcanoes.

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 5
 Plate Tectonics Theory
 The theory of Plate tectonics was
proposed in 1960s based on the
Earthquake occurrences
theory of continental drift.
may be explained by the
theory of large-scale  This is the theory that explains the
tectonic processes, formation and deformation of the
referred as “plate Earth’s surface.
tectonics” which is  According to this theory, continents
derived from the theory are carried along on huge slabs
of continental drift and (plates) on the Earth’s outermost
sea-floor spreading. layer (Lithosphere).
 Earth’s outermost layer is divided
into 15 major Tectonic Plates (~80
km deep). These plates move
relative to each other a few
centimeters per year.

Source: Lectures from Dr. G. Madhavi Latha

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 6
 Evidence for continental drift
(Theory of Alfred Wegener, 1912)

Matching coastlines
Matching mountains
Matching rock types and rock ages
Matching glacier deposits
Matching fossils

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 7
 Evidence for continental drift

Matching coastlines Matching mountain ranges

Source: Lectures from Dr. G. Madhavi Latha

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 8
 Evidence for continental drift

Matching rock types and ages of rocks

Matching glacier/ fossil deposits
300million years ago
Source: Lectures from Dr. G. Madhavi Latha

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 9
 Earthquake are recognized to be the symptoms of active tectonic movements
and as observed and confirmed that the intense activity occurs predominantly on
plate boundaries (seismic belts).

Add:
Continental crust
Oceanic crust

Fig. 2.1 Tectonic Plates

Source: Elnasahi and Di Sarno, 2008

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 10
 Fig. 2.2 Tectonic
Plates

Source: Chen and Lui, 2006

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 11
 Fig. 3.0 Earth’s Layer

Earth’s Layer
Plates – large and stable rigid rock slabs with a
thickness of about 100km, forming the crust
or lithosphere and part of the upper mantle.
Crust – outer rock layer with non-uniform
thickness of 25-60km under continents and 4-
6km under oceans.
Mantle – portion of the Earth’s interior below Source: [Link]
crust extending from 30km-2900km

Large tectonic forces takes place at the plate edges due to the relative movement of the
lithosphere-asthenosphere complex. The movement is caused by convection currents in the mantle.
The velocity of movement is about 1 to 10cm/year.

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 12
 Principal types of plate boundaries :
• A. Divergent or rift zones – plates separates from one
another either by effusion of magma occurrence or lithosphere
diverges from interior of the Earth. A mid-ocean ridge may
form by sea-floor spreading/ rifting marking a divergent
boundary between two tectonic plates ([Link]-Atlantic ridge). Tension
- Plates move apart from each other.

• B. Convergent or subduction zones – adjacent plates

converge and collide. There are two types: oceanic and
continental lithosphere convergent boundaries (e.g. Circum-
Pacific and Eurasian belts).
- Plates come together. Compression

• C. Transform zones or transcurrent horizontal slip – two

plates glide past one another but without subducting old
lithosphere (e.g. San Andreas fault in California).
Shearing
- Plates slides past each other
Image Source: Lectures from Dr. G. Madhavi Latha

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 13
 Fig. 4.0 Cross – section of the Earth with the main type plate boundaries

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 14
 Fig. 5.0 Tectonic mechanisms at plate boundaries.

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 15
 Faulting
• The distorted blocks snap back towards equilibrium and an
earthquake ground motion is produced.
• This process is referred to as “elastic rebound”. The
resulting fracture in the Earth’s crust is termed a “fault”.
• Fault zone – zone of the earth’s crust within which the two
sides have moved – faults may be hundreds of miles long,
from one to over hundred miles deep, sometimes not
apparent on the ground surface.
• During the sudden rupture of the brittle crustal rock,
seismic waves are generated.

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 16
 Source: [Link] (Lectures from Dr. G. Madhavi Latha
• Elastic Rebound Theory
• Rocks bend under stress while storing elastic energy. When the strain
in the rocks exceeds their strength, breaking will occur along the fault.
Stored elastic energy is released as the earthquake. Rocks “snap
back”, or rebound to their original condition.

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 17
 Active faults may be classified on the basis of their geometry and the direction of relative slip. The
parameters used to describe fault motion and its dimension are as follows:

1. Azimuth ( φ ): the angle between the trace of the fault, i.e.

the intersection of the fault plane with the horizontal, and
the northerly direction (0 ° ≤ φ ≤ 360 ° ). The angle is
measured so that the fault plane dips to the right - hand
side;
2. Dip ( δ ): the angle between the fault and the horizontal
plane (0 ° ≤ δ ≤ 90 ° );
3. Slip or rake ( λ ): the angle between the direction of relative
displacement and the horizontal direction ( − 180 ° ≤ λ ≤ 180
Fig. 6.0 Parameters used to describe fault motion.
° ). It is measured on the fault plane;
4. Relative displacement ( Δ u ): the distance travelled by a The orientation of fault motion is defined by the
point on either side of the fault plane. If Δ u varies along the three angles    and its dimensions are
fault plane, its mean value is generally used; given by its area S as displayed in Fig. 6.0; the
fault slip is measured by the relative
5. Area ( S ): surface area of the highly stressed region within displacement u.
the fault plane.
ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE
FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 18
 Parameters that used to describe the fault motion.

90˚ dip = vertical fault plane

0˚ strike = north parallel fault plane

Fig. 6.0 Parameters used to describe fault motion.

Image Source: [Link] (Lectures from Dr. G. Madhavi Latha

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 19
 Several fault mechanisms exist depending on how the plates move with respect to one
another. The most common fault mechanisms of earthquake sources are:
Dip-slip faults
• One block moves away vertically with respect to the other. If the block underlying the fault
plane or “footwall” moves up the dip and away from the block overhanging the fault plane,
or ‘hanging wall’, normal faults are obtained.
• Tensile forces cause the shearing failure of normal faults. When the hanging wall moves
upward in relation to the footwall, the faults are reversed; compressive forces cause the
failure.
• Thrusts faults are reverse faults characterized by a small dip.

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 20
 Image Source: Lectures from Dr. G. Madhavi Latha

A Normal dip slip fault

Fig. 7.0.1 Fundamental Fault Mechanisms

A reverse dip-slip fault

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE 21

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 21
 Several fault mechanisms exist depending on how the plates move with respect to
one another. The most common mechanisms of earthquake sources are:

Strike-slip faults
• The adjacent blocks move horizontally past one another.
• Strike-slip can be right-lateral or left-lateral, depending on the sense of the relative
motion of the blocks for an observer located on one side of the fault line.
• The slip takes place along an essentially vertical fault plane and can be caused by
either compression or tension stresses.
• Typically, a transform zone.

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 22
 Image Source: Lectures from Dr. G. Madhavi Latha

A strike-slip fault

Fig. 7.0.2 Fundamental Fault Mechanisms

Strike-slip right-lateral

Strike-slip left-lateral

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 23
 Image Source: Lectures from Dr. G. Madhavi Latha
Oblique slip
 Combination of strike-slip and dip-slip movements.
 Can be either normal or reverse and right – or – left-lateral movements.

An oblique-slip fault

Fig. 7.0.2 Fundamental Fault Mechanisms

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 24
 Focus or Hypocenter
• Point under the surface where the
rupture originates.
• Located by geographical coordinates
(latitude and longitude), focal depth
and origin or occurrence of time.
• Earthquakes focal depth:
shallow focus– 5-15km
intermediate focus– 20-50km
Fig. 8.0 Definition of source parameters deep focus– 300-700km
Source parameters: Epicenter
a. Epicentral distance • Projection of the focus on the
b. Hypocentral or focal distance
surface.
c. Focal depth
ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE
FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 25
 Image Source: [Link] (Lectures from Dr. G. Madhavi Latha

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 26
 Seismic Waves
Earthquake shaking is generated by two types of elastic
seismic waves. The shaking is generally a combination
of these waves at distance from the source or ‘near-
field’.
1. Body waves
a) P-waves
b) S-waves
2. Surface waves
a) Love (L or LQ-waves)
b) Rayleigh (R or LR-waves)

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 27
Body waves
Also termed as ‘preliminary tremors’ because they are felt first and travels through the Earth’s
interior layers. This waves includes:
1. P-waves – longitudinal or primary waves
• P-waves cause alternate push (compression) and pull (tension) in the rock thus, the
waves propagate, the medium expands and contracts, while keeping the same form.
• P-waves are seismic waves with relatively little damage potential.
• Travel through solids, liquids or gases.
• Material movement is the same direction as wave movement.
• Arrival: They arrive first on a seismogram.

Fig. 9.1 Travel path mechanisms of P-waves

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE
FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 28
 Body waves
2. S-waves - transverse or secondary waves
• S-waves causes vertical and horizontal side-to-side motion and introduces
shear stresses in rocks along their paths also defined as ‘shear waves’.
• Their motion can be separated into horizontal (SH) and vertical (SV)
components, both of which can cause significant damage
• Travel to solids only
• Arrival: Second on a seismogram.

Fig. 9.2 Travel path mechanisms of S-waves

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE
FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 29
Body waves

P-waves travel faster (1.5 – 8km/s) than S-waves which travels 50% to 60% slower than P-
waves.
Body waves may be described by Navier’s equation for an infinite, homogeneous. Isotropic,
elastic medium in the absence of body forces.
The propagation velocities denoted as p and s are as follows:

The ratio of P- and S-waves velocities:

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 30
 Table 1.0 Velocity of primary (P) and secondary (S) in Earth’s layer.

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 31
 Surface waves
• Propagate across the outer layers of the Earth’s crust, generated by
constructive interference of body waves travelling parallel to the ground
surface and various underlying boundaries.
• These waves induced large displacements, also called ‘principal motion’.
• Because of the long duration, cause severe damage to structural systems
during earthquake.
• Slower than body waves; rolling and side-to-side movements.

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 32
 Fig. 9.3 Surface waves
Source: [Link] (Lectures from Dr. G. Madhavi Latha

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 33
Surface waves
1. Love waves (L- or LQ-waves) – G-waves
• Generated by constructive interference of SH body waves and cannot travel across fluids. The
motion is horizontally oscillating and perpendicular to the direction of propagation which is
parallel to the Earth’s surface.
• Have large amplitudes and long periods (60-300sec).
• Typical velocity: depends on earth structure, but less than the velocity of S-waves.
• Arrival: they usually arrive after the S-wave and before the Rayleigh wave.

Fig. 9.1 Travel path mechanisms of Love waves

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE
FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 34
 Surface waves
2. Rayleigh waves (R- or LR-waves)
• Caused by constructive interference of body waves such as P and SV, as they pass by, particles
of soil move in the form of a retrograde ellipse whose axis is perpendicular or vertically
oscillating to the Earth’s surface.
• Causes back and forth horizontal motion. Motion is similar to that of being in a boat in the
ocean.
• Exhibits very large amplitude and regular waveforms.
• Arrival: they usually arrive last on a seismogram.

Fig. 9.2 Travel path mechanisms of Rayleigh waves

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE
FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 35
 Measurement of ground shaking
Seismogram
• Seismogram is visual record of arrival time and magnitude of shaking
associated with seismic wave, generated by a seismograph.

Source: [Link] (Lectures from Dr. G. Madhavi Latha

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 36
 Foreshocks and Aftershocks

Adjustments that follow a major earthquake often generate

smaller earthquakes called aftershocks
Small earthquakes, called foreshocks, often precede a
major earthquake by days or, in some cases, by as much as
several years

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 37
 HOMEWORK #1:
1. List down major historic earthquakes happened worldwide (in chronological order)*.
2. List down destructive earthquakes in the Philippines (in chronological order)*.
*The oldest and the recent data that you can get.

• File must be in pdf format, to be submitted in Google Classroom.

• Deadline of submission: September 13, 2024.

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 38
Reference
Elnashai, Amr S. and Di Sarno, Luigi. 2008. Fundamentals of Earthquake Engineering. John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
United Kingdom.
Estrada, Hector and See, Luke S. 2017. Introduction to Earthquake Engineering. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis
Group, Florida.
Chen, W.F. and Lui, E.M. 2006. Earthquake Engineering for Structural Design. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis
Group, Florida.
Gioncu, Victor and Mazzolani, Federico M. 2011. Earthquake Engineering for Structural Design. Spon Press,
New York, USA and Taylor & Francis Group e-Library.
Lectures of Dr. Latha, G. Madhavi from Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Science.
[Link]

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 39
 THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!

ANNA G. BILARO, MSCE

FACULTY CE 413 – EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Slide No. 40