Bill Nye: Earthquakes

• Tectonic plates are floating on magma
• Faults - cracks between tectonic plates
• Faults release energy - earthquakes are caused
• Seismic waves - measured by seismometers
• Seismographs draw seismic waves
• Tectonic plates - crustal plates
• When tectonic plates move away, volcanoes are created ; when tectonic plates move together mountains are created
• Epicenter - the center of an earthquake
• 10 times stronger = 32 times more energy
• Richter Scale = used to measure the magnitude of earthquakes

Custom Waves Lab

HEAVYWEIGHT(OIL) VERSUS FEATHERWEIGHT(ALCOHOL) DISTANCE CHALLENGE

I.  GUIDING QUESTION: Which medium is better for transferring surface waves; less or more dense?

II. HYPOTHESIS: In theory, a less dense material would be easier to travel through even though when travelling through a denser material, the waves have to travel a shorter distance from particle to particle.

III.  Exploration (PLAN & DO A TEST):
         
Materials:

• Aquarium
• Alcohol
• Oil
• Paper

Procedure:

1. Place the aquarium vertically from your point of view.
2. Place one piece of paper on the left side and the other on the far end of the aquarium
3. Put one cup of ethanol inside the aquarium
4. Push and pull the aquarium in a steady manner to create waves
5. Take out the papers
6. Mark with a marker the tops of the wet marks on the paper
7. Empty the aquarium
8. Put one cup of oil inside the aquarium
9. Push and pull the aquarium in a steady manner to create waves
10. Take out the papers
11. Mark with a marker the tops of the wet marks on the paper

IV.  RECORD & ANALYZE  
    

When observing my test papers, I could notice that the alcohol was pushed much higher, especially at the the end of the aquarium, while the oil was much lower. During the actual wave-making, I noticed that while the waves seemed to be travelling through the oil more smoothly, they made a large disturbance when travelling through the alcohol.

A little graph of the results that I obtained.



V.  Concept Acquisition (CONCLUSION):  

I believe that what happened was caused by the different densities of the liquids which would prove that my predictions were right. (See "II. HYPOTHESIS".) It seems to me that the less dense liquid was easy to travel through as it is very light. The oil must have been harder to walk through because it was heavier and simply denser which made it more of a barrier for the energy. Like if a person tried swimming through alcohol and then through oil, it would be much harder to swim through the oil as it would provide more resistance than the oil.

VI.  Concept Application (FURTHER INQUIRY):    

A thing that I could have improved for sure was to make the creation of the waves more stable. Although this would provide only small changes, it would become much more important if more precision was required for the success of this test. Also, I wonder how much the results would change if I increased or decreased the depth of the two liquids. I also wonder how the test results would turn out if I used one more liquid, possibly a very dense one such as honey or one in the middle of the two such as water. This would give me a broader overview although I belive that my conclusions would remain the same.