What causes earthquakes that do not occur on plate boundaries?

-- Ben Flaiz (flaiz76@hotmail.com), May 04, 2001

Answers

An earthquake occurs when "rocks being deformed suddenly break along a fault. The two blocks of rock on both sides of the fault slip suddenly setting off the ground vibrations." Even though these earthquakes aren't on a plate boundary, "strong crustal forces can still develop and cause faulting within the lithospheric plates, far from modern plate boundaries". So that's why they can earthquakes can still occur even though they're not on plate boundaries. I found this in our book on pages 412 and 422.

-- Bethany Moran (sagittarius0@hotmail.com), May 04, 2001.