GEMET
General
Multilingual
Environmental
Thesaurus
earthquake
Definition

The violent shaking of the ground produced by deep seismic waves, beneath the epicentre, generated by a sudden decrease or release in a volume of rock of elastic strain accumulated over a long time in regions of seismic activity (tectonic earthquake). The magnitude of an earthquake is represented by the Richter scale; the intensity by the Mercalli scale.

Related terms
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Scope note

Scope note is not available.

Concept URL: http://www.eionet.europa.eu/gemet/concept/2402