Why do earth surfaces crack? what are the consequences when this happens?

Answer 1

The crust of Earth is made up of about 20 major lithosphere plates that "float" on the asthenosphere. This is the mechanism behind plate tectonics. Other cracks in Earth arise because Earth's crust is brittle and will break when enough stress is applied, usually a result of the lithospheric plates moving. Usually this brittle fracturing gives rise to earthquakes.

Answer 2

Unlike life around us, the earth changes over very long periods of time. Essentially the rock you are standing on is on the move - you just can't feel/see/experience it because it is very slow.

Lets say you were to take some runny mud and pour it into a pan. You then placed that pan in the oven and gradually heated it. You would start to see small cracks forming on the semi-hard surface of the mud where there were weak points. The small cracks would spread and combine to create larger crevices in the surface of the mud. You might even witness areas where the surface had risen.

Take that experiment and comapare it to the Earth's processes: Deep inside the Earth is molten rock (the runny mud from the experiment). The molten material rises up towards the top at areas where the hard rock on top is weak. With enough pressure and time the weak spots can "slip" causing huge valleys (those mud cracks), or tall mountains (the raised areas on the muddy surface), or the area near the weak spots will shake and shift to cause varying degrees of structural damage to nearby structures (earthquakes).

If you ever take a look up in the night sky at the moon you will see dark craters marring its surface. The moon is "dead" in the sense that there is no molten rock bubbling below its surface like here on Earth. Those craters will remain while here on Earth our mountains will rise, weather down, and rise again...over a very, very long time...

Deion "Mule" Christopher

Answer 3

dont know to much about that. but i do know that theirs a fault line in the earth that starts from paduka ky, to minn. across all those states and its a earth quake line.