访谈录 2010-03-01&0304 智利地震与海地地震有关？

Today's massive earthquake following the 7.0 quake in Haiti just last month and others recently around the globe, leave us wondering if there is a pattern and more trouble ahead. We’ll get some answers from NBC News Chief Science Correspondent, Robert Bazell.

Chile today. Haiti last month. When deadly earthquakes appear one after another, people always ask, is there a connection? (“This is a very, very…”) Seismologists say no, there are earthquakes all the time.

"This sense that we are having a lot of big ones close together, these are not actually related, they involve different places of plates."

Plates, those are huge sections of the Earth’s crust that are in constant motion. The boundaries where they meet are called faults. And when enough pressure builds, the faults slip violently, resulting in an earthquake. At the site of today's quake, one piece of Earth called the Nazca Plate, is constantly pushing underneath¹ another called the South American Plate. It is part of an enormous system of faults surrounding the Pacific Ocean, called the Ring of Fire. Today's earthquake was just 150 miles north of the biggest earthquake ever recorded a magnitude 9.5 that killed 1600 people in 1960 and sent huge tsunamis³ around the Pacific.

"Almost half way around the world from this earthquake…"

The numbers used to measure an earthquake's magnitude don't tell the whole story. Today's 8.8 quake was far more powerful than the one that struck Haiti January 12.

"It would produce about 500 times as much energy as a magnitude 7. So this is a much larger earthquake."

Still all everyone expects the death toll⁴ in Chile to climb, many say it will fall far a short of the more than 200,000 killed in Haiti, where the earthquake struck right beneath a densely-populated, poorly-built area.

"Fortunately, the fault surface ruptured⁵ in this is a bit further from populated areas than the fault that ruptured in Haiti. So the overall shaking felt in populated areas is less. "

And the tsunami² warnings? When an earthquake strikes under the ocean, a tsunami occurs when the ruptured fault moves violently up and down. Today's quake moves 350 miles of ocean forward, displacing so much water the scientists predicted the waves would travel as far as Japan and Russia.

Robert Bazell, NBC news, New York.

1 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

2 tsunami   

n.海啸

参考例句：

• Powerful quake sparks tsunami warning in Japan.大地震触发了日本的海啸预警。
• Coastlines all around the Indian Ocean inundated by a huge tsunami.大海啸把印度洋沿岸地区都淹没了。

3 tsunamis   

n.海啸( tsunami的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Our oceans are alive with earthquakes, volcanoes, and more recently, tsunamis. 海中充满着地震、火山，包括最近发生的海啸。 来自常春藤生活英语杂志-2006年2月号
• Please tell me something more about tsunamis! 请您给我讲讲海啸吧！ 来自辞典例句

4 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

5 ruptured   

v.（使）破裂( rupture的过去式和过去分词 )；（使体内组织等）断裂；使（友好关系）破裂；使绝交

参考例句：

• They reported that the pipeline had ruptured. 他们报告说管道已经破裂了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The wall through Berlin was finally ruptured, prefiguring the reunification of Germany. 柏林墙终于倒塌了，预示着德国的重新统一。 来自辞典例句