What causes earthquakes?
Earth's Restless Dance
What causes earthquakes?
The ground under your feet feels perfectly still right now. Solid. Trustworthy. Like it's been sitting there forever and plans to keep sitting there forever. But deep below — way, way down where no one can see — something is always moving.
Earth's surface isn't one solid shell. It's broken into giant puzzle pieces called tectonic plates — slabs of rock hundreds of miles thick, floating on a layer of partially melted rock below. These plates carry entire continents and oceans on their backs. And here's the thing: they're sliding around. Slowly. About as fast as your fingernails grow.
