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Neither cracks nor faults cause earthquakes by themselves. It is the motion of the Earth's plates.

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11y ago
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12y ago

because the masses slip past each other

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Q: Why do cracks and faults in rocks causes earthquakes?
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Related questions

How dams lead to earthquakes?

There is more pressure on the micro-cracks in the near reservoirs, and when there is more pressure on the rocks the water acts like a lubricant to the faults and is stopped by friction against the rock surfaces which causes an earthquake.


Which is used to determine earthquakes risk?

Strains in rocks near faults


Which are used for short range predictions of when earthquakes will occur?

Answer: Strain in rocks near faults.


What are manifestations of stress in rocks?

cracks == In addition to cracks: faulting, metamorphism to new rock types, earthquakes, tilting, and folding.


Which explain earthquakes and tornadoes?

Tornadoes and earthquakes are completely unrelated phenomena. In brief, tornadoes develop when severe thunderstorms gain rotation from wind shear and that rotation tightens, intensifies, and extends to the ground. Earthquakes usually occur when rocks slip along cracks called faults, releasing stress that has built of from the movement of tectonic plates.


What is the breaking of rocks that causes vibrations in Earth?

Earthquakes


The force that causes rocks to break as plates rub past each other is called what?

The force that causes rocks to break as plates rub past each other is called shear stress. This stress leads to the formation of faults and the subsequent release of energy in the form of earthquakes.


What rock forms along cracks or in faults?

This may be a fault breccia or cataclasite which is formed by the fracturing of rocks during fault movement.


Why is it that earthquakes occur?

Large cracks running through the rocks of the Earth's crust are called faults. When stresses on the rocks get large enough to make the rocks on one side of a fault (either a new one or existing one) jerk aside suddenly relative to the other side, that's an earthquake. The stress can come from many sources. Movement of large plates of continental or oceanic crust relative to each other causes the stress that triggers most of the big earthquakes, but not all of them. Sometimes, especially where earthquakes don't happen often, nobody knows where the stress came from-- or, rather, many researchers do, but no two can agree!


What causes earthquakes along a transform boundary?

A transform boundary is a fault zone with two plates that are horizontally sliding past each other. The sudden release of energy when the rocks fracture causes an earthquake.


How do earthquakes happen-?

Earthquakes happen when under the ground rocks break at a fault. The rocks then break it release of energy which causes semi waves.


What vibrations caused by breaking rocks along faults most plates moving over under and past each other?

Earthquakes.