Plate motion and tectonic hazards

Homes, cultivated terraces and vegetation sit among cooled volcanic rock.
Imagined volcanic landscape

Moving plates interact at boundaries. Collision, subduction and other movement can build stress that is released along faults. The rupture produces seismic waves.

A boundary label is a starting point. Explain the actual mechanism and use an event’s source for its location and magnitude; not every earthquake on a boundary has the same effects.

Put the concept to work

Map scale and distance · Source evaluation