Abstract
The lithosphere, earth’s rigid outer shell comprising crust and upper mantle rock, is broken into about 14 tectonic plates (Christopherson 2009) that move a few centimeters per year over superheated, pliable rock underneath. Forces within earth’s interior push, pull and twist the plates in different directions, producing three types of plate boundaries: convergent (colliding with one another), divergent (moving away from one another) and transform (sliding past one another). Earthquakes occur when plates become locked together, building strain between and within them that is suddenly released, sending a burst of seismic waves that cause shaking and displacement of the surface. Nearly 95% of earthquakes are due to movement along plate boundaries, particularly convergent boundaries surrounding the Pacific Ocean and a mix of transform and convergent boundaries extending southeast from the Mediterranean region of Europe to Indonesia (Wicander and Monroe 2009) (Fig. 1). However, faults can also develop within plates, and intraplate earthquakes strong enough to affect humans and to be recorded in tree rings have occurred (e.g. Sheppard and White 1995; VanArsdale et al. 1998; Carrara 2002; Bekker 2004).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Allen RB, Bellingham PJ, Wiser SK (1999) Immediate damage by an earthquake to a temperate Montane forest. Ecology 80:708–14
Atwater BF, Stuiver M, Yamaguchi DK (1991) Radiocarbon test of earthquake magnitude at the Cascadia subduction zone. Nature 353:156–158
Atwater BF, Musumi-Rokkaku S, Satake K, Tsuji Y, Ueda K, Yamaguchi DK (2005) The orphan tsunami of 1700. US Geol Surv Prof Paper 1707
Atwater BF, Yamaguchi DK (1991) Sudden, probably coseismic submergence of Holocene trees and grass in coastal Washington State. Geology 19:706–709
Bekker MF (2004) Spatial variation in the response of tree rings to normal faulting during the Hebgen Lake Earthquake, southwestern Montana, USA. Dendrochronologia 22:53–59
Carrara PE (2002) Response of Douglas Firs along the fault scarp of the 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake, southwestern Montana. Northwest Geol 31:54–65
Carrara PE, O’Neill JM (2003) Tree-ring dated landslide movements and their relationship to seismic events in southwestern Montana, USA. Quat Res 59:25–35
Carrara PE, O’Neill JM (2010) Tree-ring dated landslide movements and seismic events in southwestern Montana, U.S.A. In: Stoffel M, Bollschweiler M, Butler DR, Luckman BH (eds) Tree rings and natural hazards: A state-of-the-art. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, this volume
Christopherson RW (2009) Geosystems: an introduction to physical geography, 7th edn. Pearson Prentice Hall, New Jersey
Hamilton WL (2010) Seismic damage in conifers from Olympic and Yellowstone National Parks, United States. In: Stoffel M, Bollschweiler M, Butler DR, Luckman BH (eds) Tree rings and natural hazards: A state-of-the-art. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, this volume
Jacoby GC (1997) Application of tree ring analysis to paleoseismology. Rev Geophys 35:109–124
Jacoby GC, Ulan LD (1983) Tree ring indications of uplift at Icy Cape, Alaska, related to 1899 earthquakes. J Geophys Res 88:9305–9313
Jacoby GC, Sheppard PR, Sieh KE (1988) Irregular recurrence of large earthquakes along the San Andreas fault: evidence from trees. Science 241:196–198
Jacoby GC, Carver G, Wagner W (1995) Trees and herbs killed by an earthquake 300 yr ago at Humbolt Bay, California. Geology 23:77–80
Jacoby GC, Bunker DE, Benson BE (1997) Tree-ring evidence for an A.D. 1700 Cascadia earthquake in Washington and northern Oregon. Geology 25:999–1002
Jacoby GC (2010) Application of tree-ring analysis to paleoseismology. In: Stoffel M, Bollschweiler M, Butler DR, Luckman BH (eds) Tree rings and natural hazards: A state-of-the-art. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, this volume
Kitzberger T, Veblen TT, Villalba R (1995) Tectonic influences on tree growth in northern Patagonia, Argentina: the roles of substrate stability and climatic variation. Can J Forest Res 25:1684–96
LaMarche VC, Wallace RE (1972) Evaluation of effects on trees of past movements on the San Andreas Fault, northern California. Geol Soc Am Bull 83:2665–2676
Lin A, Lin S (1998) Tree damage and surface displacement: the 1931m 8.0 Fuyun earthquake. J Geol 106:751–757
Lin A, Lin SJ Lin (2010) Tree ring abnormality caused by large earthquake: an example from the 1931 M 8.0 Fuyun earthquake. In: Stoffel M, Bollschweiler M, Butler DR, Luckman BH (Eds) Tree rings and natural hazards: A state-of-the-art. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, this volume
Lowman P, Yates J, Masuoka P, Montgomery B, O’Leary J, Salisbury D (1999) A digital tectonic activity map of the earth. J Geosci Ed 47:428–437
Meisling KE, Sieh KE (1980) Disturbance of trees by the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake, California. J Geophys Res 85:3225–3238
Page R (1970) Dating episodes of faulting from tree rings: effects of the 1958 rupture of the Fairweather Fault on tree growth. Geol Soc Am Bull 81:3085–3094
Ruzhich VV, San’kov VA, Dneprovskii YI (1982) The dendrochronological dating of seismogenic ruptures in the Stanovoi Highland. Soviet Geol Geophys 123:57–63
Satake K, Shimazaki K, Tsuji Y, Ueda K (1996) Time and size of a giant earthquake in Cascadia inferred from Japanese tsunami records of January 1700. Nature 379:246–249
Sheppard PR, Jacoby GC (1989) Application of tree-ring analysis to paleoseismology: two case studies. Geology 17:226–229
Sheppard PR, White LO (1995) Tree-ring responses to the 1978 earthquake at Stephens Pass, northeastern California. Geology 23:109–12
Smith K, Petley DN (2009) Environmental hazards: assessing risk and reducing disaster, 5th edn. Routledge, New York
Stahle DW, VanArsdale RB, Cleaveland MK (1992) Tectonic signal in baldcypress trees at Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee. Seismol Res Lett 63:439–448
VanArsdale RB, Stahle DW, Cleaveland MK, Guccione MJ (1998) Earthquake signals in tree-ring data from the New Madrid seismic zone and implications for paleoseismicity. Geology 26:515–518
Veblen TT, Kitzberger T, Lara A (1992) Disturbance and forest dynamics along a transect from Andean rain forest to Patagonian shrubland. J Veg Sci 3:507–520
Vittoz P, Stewart GH, Duncan RP (2001) Earthquake impacts in old-growth Nothofagus forests in New Zealand. J Veg Sci 12:417–426
Wells A, Yetton MD, Duncan RP, Stewart GH (1999) Prehistoric dates of the most recent Alpine fault earthquakes, New Zealand. Geology 27:995–998
Wicander R, Monroe JS (2009) Essentials of physical geology, 5th edn. Brooks-Cole, Belmont, CA
Wood HO, Newman F (1931) Modified Mercalli intensity scale of 1931. Bull Seismol Soc Am 21:277–283
Yadav RR, Kulieshius P (1992) Dating of earthquakes: tree-ring responses to the catastrophic earthquake of 1887 in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. Geogr J 158:295–299
Yamaguchi DK, Atwater BF, Bunker DE, Benson BE, Reid MS (1997) Tree-ring dating the 1700 Cascadia earthquake. Nature 389:922–923
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bekker, M.F. (2010). Tree Rings and Earthquakes. In: Stoffel, M., Bollschweiler, M., Butler, D., Luckman, B. (eds) Tree Rings and Natural Hazards. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 41. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8736-2_36
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8736-2_36
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-8735-5
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-8736-2
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)