The Moon doesn’t have earthquakes, but it does have moonquakes! That’s right, the moon experiences quakes too. Moonquakes are usually weaker than earthquakes, but a lot longer - they sometimes last for 30 minutes!

Earthquakes happen in between tectonic plates. These boundaries are called fault lines.

81% of the world’s earthquakes happen on a series of fault lines called the circum-Pacific seismic belt, which is located along the rim of the Pacific Ocean.

Every part of the Earth experiences at least minor earthquakes, but Antarctica is the continent with the least earthquakes.

Earthquakes typically last only a few seconds. Large earthquakes cause strong ground shaking that lasts 10-30 seconds.

The biggest earthquake ever recorded happened on May 22, 1960 just off the coast of southern Chile. It generated a massive tsunami (a wave caused by an earthquake) that traveled all the way across the Pacific Ocean to cause destruction in Hawaii and Japan.

The Earth’s outer layer, the crust, is made up of a bunch of different pieces that are constantly moving around. When two pieces push against one another, they will eventually crumple, pushing the land above them upwards. If you take two pieces of aluminum foil and push them slowly into one another, you can see a similar process take place.

The core of the Earth is a solid ball about ¾ the size of the Moon. We haven’t been able to observe it directly, but we can make guesses about it based on analyzing how waves created by earthquakes bounce around, and by looking at the Earth’s magnetic field, which the core has a lot to do with. Scientists believe the core is made mainly of an iron-nickel alloy, and to be about 9,800 °F, or 5,430 °C - about the temperature of the surface of the Sun.