Visualizing Relationships with Data: Exploring plate boundaries with Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and GPS Data in the Western U.S. & Alaska | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Learners use the GPS Velocity Viewer, or the included map packet to visualize relationships between earthquakes, volcanoes, and plate boundaries as a jigsaw activity.

Detecting Cascadia's changing shape with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Research-grade Global Positioning Systems (GPS) allow students to deduce that Earth's crust is changing shape in measurable ways. From data gathered by EarthScope's Plate Boundary Observatory, students discover that the Pacific Northwest of the United States and coastal British Columbia — the Cascadia region - are geologically active: tectonic plates move and collide; they shift and buckle; continental crust deforms; regions warp; rocks crumple, bend, and will break.

Earthquake Case Study part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Kaatje van der Hoeven Kraft, Whatcom Community College
This activity is a multiple case study analysis of different earthquakes that leads to student interpretation of claims, evidence and prediction/recommendations.

Exploring California's Plate Motion and Deformation with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Students analyze data to study the motion of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. From GPS data, students detect relative motion between the plates in the San Andreas fault zone--with and without earthquakes. To get to that discovery, they use physical models to understand the architecture of GPS, from satellites to sensitive stations on the ground. They learn to interpret time series data collected by stations (in the spreading regime of Iceland), to cast data as horizontal north-south and east-west vectors, and to add those vectors head-to-tail.Students then apply their skills and understanding to data in the context of the strike-slip fault zone of a transform plate boundary. They interpret time series plots from an earthquake in Parkfield, CA to calculate the resulting slip on the fault and (optionally) the earthquake's magnitude.

Exploring Spreadsheets with Microsoft Excel part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Eileen Herrstrom, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students work with a large set of earthquake data, examine types of charts available in Excel, and use a spreadsheet to ...

GPS Velocity Viewer part of Geodesy:Resources
EarthScope Consortium
This interactive tool allows users to see GPS/GNSS-measured crustal motions around the globe in a wide range of reference frames. The default view shows horizontal motions in the North American reference frame but users can choose to add vertical motions, earthquakes epicenters, plate boundaries, volcanic centers, or other reference frames. The tool can also be used as an interface to learn GPS/GNSS station names and download time series data.

(Introduction to) Physical Geology part of Introductory Courses:Courses
John Leland, Glendale Community College
Physical Geology is a course in which students will learn about earthquakes, volcanoes, Earth's history, the processes that shape Earth's surface, and about Earth's resources. Students will witness ...

February 2010 Chile Earthquake and Tsunami part of Hazards:Events
Centered off the coast near Maule, Chile, this 8.8 magnitude earthquake on February 27, 2010 was one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded. The massive quake also triggered a tsunami that swept across the Pacific basin.

1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire Visualizations part of Hazards:Events
The earthquake that struck San Francisco on April 18, 1906 remains one of the strongest and most significant earthquakes in US history. The fire that developed in its aftermath brought the city to its knees. This collection presents links to images, films, panoramas and animations about the earthquake and fire.

Tectonic Plates part of Videos:Video Gallery
In this video we describe the three major compositional layers of Earth and the characteristics of a tectonic plate which is composed of lithosphere representing parts of the crust and mantle. The lithosphere is divided into pieces we call tectonic plates. Ah, you say, but can you demonstrate what you mean using an orange? Why, yes, yes we can. After the orange demo, we illustrate how to use maps of earthquake locations to draw outlines of Earth's major tectonic plates and give them names. Following the video we want you to be able to take a blank map of the world and draw a reasonable sketch of where the major plate boundaries are located.