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Essay / Probable Causes of Intra-Plate Earthquakes
The probable causes and determining factors related to the manifestation and distribution of intra-plate earthquakes turn out to be very subtle. Different researchers have tried to explain this earthquake according to different perceptions and several models have been proposed to date. In a global context, intraplate earthquakes occur along pre-existing zones of weakness within areas affected by the last major orogeny (Sykes 1978). Some of the models that explain the occurrence of intraplate earthquakes are secant faults (Talwani 1988, 1999); local concentration of stress around destabilized offenses (Campbell 1978); ductile weak zones in the lower crust (Zoback 1983), presence of fluids in the lower crust of ancient rift zones (Vinnik 1989), stress disruption resulting from buried rift pillows (Zoback and Richardson 1996), weak zone in the lower crust (Kenner and Segall 2000), riveted crust (Johnston and Kanter 1990; Johnston et al. 1994; Schulte and Mooney 2005), craton edges (Mooney et al. 2012), areas of high heat flux (Liu and Zoback 1997) and lateral density variations (Stein et al. 1989). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In these models, the upper crust primarily satisfies seismogenic earthquakes that are governed by plate-generated forces. However, as the lower crust is weakened due to higher temperatures, the strength of the lithosphere is diminished, causing earthquakes of moderate magnitude. Long (1988) proposed that seismicity due to intraplate earthquakes is a transient phenomenon caused by a disturbance in crustal strength due to disruption of the hydraulic or thermal properties of the lower crust. Other models suggest that intraplate seismicity is due to disruption of the regional stress field by forces associated with lithospheric flexure after deglaciation, gravitational forces at structural boundaries, or sediment loading (Stein et al. 1979; Quinlan 1984; Goodacre & Hasegawa 1980; Zoback (1992) suggested that large intraplate earthquakes occur due to the compressive stress field within the plate, which is a combination of the main plate strength and the local stress field associated with specific tectonic or geological constraints. features (such as lateral density contrasts, lateral force contrasts, and lithospheric bending). Recent data studies of global stress models reveal that the stress field can have broader wavelengths, extending from plate scales to regional and local scales (Heidbach et al. 2010). Talwani (2014) and Khan et al. (2016) attempted to combine all these different models into an incorporated model for intraplate earthquakes. They proposed that intraplate earthquakes occur in certain geological areas where local stresses concentrate, which sustains the gathering of local stresses and this accumulated local stress field interacts with the regional tectonic stress field and ultimately leads to a earthquake. Sometimes stress acclimation may also allow the accumulation of an increased stress field with transformation of the rheology of the constituent rocks, and rupture may take place and generate an earthquake..