There are about 20,000 earthquakes around the world each year, with an average of 55 per day, but most of them are not felt because they are just minor tremors. The magnitude of these earthquakes is measured on the Richter scale.
Since we live in an earthquake country, you have known such information for years. However, things get complicated when it comes to a 20.0 magnitude earthquake scenario.
The Richter scale ranks the amount of energy released by an earthquake in a logarithmic fashion. So what does logarithmic mean?
So this means that the amount of energy released is a 31.7 times increase between integer values on the scale. For example, a 2.0ML [magnitude 2] earthquake releases about 32 times more energy than a 1.0ML one. A 3.0ML earthquake is 1000 times stronger than a 1.0ML one.
The largest earthquake ever recorded was 9.5 magnitude and lasted about ten minutes.
In this earthquake in Chile in 1960, 1655 people died and two million people were left homeless. In addition, approximately five billion dollars of damage was caused.
Immediately after the earthquake, tsunamis occurred covering southern Chile, Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, eastern New Zealand, southeast Australia and the Aleutian Islands.
You can read the details of this earthquake in our content:
Let’s come to our main question: What would it take for an earthquake with a magnitude of 20.0 to occur?
In order to better understand this, it is useful to remember our basic information. As you know, most earthquakes are caused by the movements of tectonic plates. They can also be caused by events such as volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts.
These plates that make up the earth’s crust can slide against each other in a region called the transformation boundary. When plates move in different directions, they can cause a break in the earth’s crust called a fault line. This is where most earthquakes occur.
As the plates push each other tightly, they create friction, and if there is enough friction, they can lock into each other and stop sliding. But as the thrust continues, the pent-up energy and pressure will increase.
When the pressure is high enough, it will overcome the friction, causing a very strong and sudden non-slip. This causes the vibration we know as an earthquake. The longer the fault line, the greater the earthquake.
So how long a fault line would it take to produce a 20.0 magnitude earthquake?
To produce a 10.5 magnitude earthquake, you would need a fault length of about 80,000 km. Given that the Earth’s circumference is only 40,000 km, this is highly unlikely.
Therefore, a 20.0 magnitude earthquake “caused by a fault line” does not seem possible. But don’t be overjoyed, it can happen in a different way.
In the event of a large meteorite impact, we will experience a shock that will last longer than any earthquake we have ever experienced.
The shaking and its aftershocks would not stop for hours. There would be tsunamis of unprecedented size, and if the meteorite fell into an ocean, the waves would reach up to the sky.
As if that wasn’t enough, other earthquakes would also be triggered and volcanic eruptions would occur. The whole Earth would literally fall apart.
Whether or not the planet will be completely disintegrated depends on the “gravitational binding energy”. What is that, if you say; It is the minimum value required for a spherical and whole object to stay together under the influence of gravity, but these details are the subject of a separate content.
A 20.0 magnitude earthquake would generate more than enough energy to overpower the gravitational binding energy and destroy our planet. Actually, you don’t have to worry too much, it is possible to defend ourselves against this danger by foreseeing the arrival of a large meteorite.
For example, NASA is taking important steps in this regard:
Maybe the world is ready for such a possible danger, but we are not ready for an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 yet, it is necessary to find a solution first. We did not forget:
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