Last night, just after Mom and Dad had gone to sleep, they were woken up by an earthquake. Don't worry, there was no damage, just house trembling like a big, big truck was rolling by. We looked it up this morning and it was centered off the coast of Nicaragua and close to El Salvador. It was 7.4 on the Richter scale (it was 4.5 on the scale in San Jose, the capital.) They issued a tsunami warning, even for our area, but it has passed now.
Maeve likes to say that earthquakes are the earth being hungry and its belly is rumbling. Actually, they are the tectonic plates of the earth shifting.
Earthquakes happen often in Costa Rica because it sits on 3 large tectonic plates just off the Pacific Coast. There were 79 earthquakes (but only one really big one) in the past year! I'm definitely not worried about any of it. It's just part of the adventure!
Wow! Glad you are all not worried and, Maeve, I love your theory! Sam, quick question, what is a tectonic plate?!?! (I figure your answer would be better than google) :)
ReplyDeleteTectonic plates are gigantic pieces of the earth's crust (kind of like a big jigsaw puzzle) that move a few centimetres each year. Where two edges of the plates press up against each other it's called a fault line. When enough pressure builds up and they move a little sideways, an earthquake happens. I wonder if there will be one when you are here?
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