Seismology Trivia Questions
- ❓ 123+ questions
- 🗂️ Earth Science
- 🎚️ Easy to expert
- ✨ Free to play
Seismic activity and its effects. Play Seismology trivia solo to sharpen your knowledge, or challenge a friend head-to-head in Trivia Tango — every question comes with an explanation so you learn as you play. Questions span every level, from easy warm-ups to expert-level stumpers, so there's a real challenge here however much you already know.
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Sample Seismology Quiz Questions
A mix of easy, medium and hard — questions run from warm-up to expert, so there's a real challenge at every level. Think you know the answers? Play to find out.
This instrument records ground motion during earthquakes and was invented in 1880 by John Milne in Japan.
Difficulty: Easy- Seismograph
- Barometer
- Accelerometer
- Magnetometer
When two plates collide and one slides beneath the other, this process creates deep ocean trenches.
Difficulty: Medium- Spreading
- Subduction
- Rifting
- Folding
The Parkfield Earthquake Experiment failed to predict the 2004 event, which arrived this many years late.
Difficulty: Hard- 16 years late
- 8 years late
- 4 years late
- 22 years late
The point on Earth's surface directly above where an earthquake begins is called this location term.
Difficulty: Easy- Focus
- Epicenter
- Fault line
- Hypocenter
Japan experiences approximately 1,500 felt earthquakes annually due to sitting at the junction of this many plates.
Difficulty: Medium- Two plates
- Three plates
- Four plates
- Five plates
The stochastic method for ground motion simulation uses Green's functions convolved with this random process.
Difficulty: Hard- Gaussian noise
- White noise
- Pink noise
- Brown noise
A Caltech seismologist created this 1935 logarithmic earthquake magnitude scale that became a household name.
Difficulty: Easy- Mercalli scale
- Beaufort scale
- Richter scale
- Moment magnitude scale
This diagram shows the direction of first motion on a beach ball pattern, revealing how rock moved during an earthquake.
Difficulty: Medium- Focal mechanism
- Stress tensor
- Moment tensor
- Fault plane solution
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