How Earthquakes Sustain Life on Earth

First of all, I recognize the sorrow of the victims and survivors of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis. I pray that measures and alert systems in the future will keep us safe because earthquakes will keep coming if life on earth must survive.

Earthquakes are how we feel plate tectonics. They’re the movement of rock plates on the crust of the earth and the mantle below it. It is our planet’s recycling system and always-charged battery.

1. Shakes happen when blocks of earth slip past one another. Gradually, cold slabs of rocks fall into the earth’s underground oven while freshly-baked plates rise to warm the seafloor. Without this cycle, oceans will freeze.

2. The sinking rocks pull carbon dioxide down with them. Carbon dioxide is good for earthly life but too much of it can make the planet overheat. 

3. When rocks sink, they also bring with them dead organisms. They are recycled and returned to the surface as nutrients to feed marine life and to maintain the chemical composition of the ocean.

4. The movements inside the earth also produce electricity that creates an electromagnetic shield around the planet. This cover deflects most of the solar winds and so we are protected from ultraviolet radiation.

It is believed that the evolution of life started in the rocks under the oceans. The earth is also the only planet known to have plate tectonics like ours. And it’s the only one where there is life!


100 Amazing Facts About Planet Earth by Faizan Aziz

Deadly Yet Necessary, Quakes Renew the Planet by William J. Broad on The New York Times website

Miracles: What They Are, How They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life by Eric Metaxas

The Creator Revealed: A Physicist Examines the Big Bang and the Bible by Michael G. Strauss, PhD.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-earths-cracked-crust-may-be-essential-for-life-20180607/

https://www.usgs.gov/programs/earthquake-hazards/science-earthquakes

 

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