Pollution Essay: The Great Lisbon Earthquake

The Great Lisbon Earthquake

An earthquake is a rapid and sudden tremors of the earth crust as a result of energy stored and released from the rocks (Phyllis 12). The great Lisbon Earthquake in November 1st 1755 would be one such natural phenomenon that marks a great earthquake history (Luiz, Carlos and Joab 07). This paper is therefore a report about the great Lisbon Earthquake and the events associated with its occurrence.

The Great Lisbon Earthquake is located in a wealthy seaport of Lisbon known as Portugal. In fact the epicenter of the tremors was at a distance of two hundred miles away from west-south west of Cape St. Vincent which is to the southwest corner of Portugal. However the evidence of this great earthquake would mark a span of up to two thousand two hundred miles.

Initially the Lisbon residents would just notice slight shakings and a bout ten minutes later buildings would begin to collapse.
The great Lisbon Earthquake had a magnitude of eight point seven (8.7) on a Richter scale with evidence visible as far as 2200 miles away, this would actually be a great magnitude of earth tremors.

In Lisbon, this would occur during the second day’s mass resulting to the majority of deaths on the people attending the church hence the common notion that this was a punishment from God by some clergy. This earthquake occurred on the all saint’s Day. Associated with the earthquake would be a twelve meters high tsunami that results to thousands of death for most of the people who sought refuge near the harbor of Lisbon.

The great Lisbon Earthquake would occur on the seismic active region with the plate boundary of Eurasia and Africa. This boundary is believed to be a complex structure with active volcanoes and rifting that is prevalent at Azores. So many factors contributes to the complex nature of this plate boundary. It separates an oceanic crust on both sides of its western side, while on the eastern side it has a continental nature featuring the Mediterranean basin in between the plate boundaries. Specifically, this is a tectonic plate boundary within the mid-Atlantic (John

234).
The scale of destruction that resulted from this phenomenon was not limited to the effects of tsunami, many fires cropped within the city center as a result of open stoves and candles that would be left unattended. This would see a city on fire for at least five days extending to the buildings that would see little or no tsunami or earthquake effects. These series of disasters combined would cost sixty thousand (60000) lives and destruction to twelve thousand households in Lisbon alone. Moreover, the destruction extended to seventy five percent of Lisbon and the effects of the earthquake extended to Spain and North Africa and generally across the Atlantic basin.
It is clear that The Great Earthquake of Lisbon on the 1st of November 1755 has a seismological as well as a spiritual interpretation to it as the city in which its influence was the highest is a religious one. In either views, this seismic wave would be one of the greatest and disastrous in the world history. In fact its effects results to the onset of construction of the first Earthquake resistant buildings in history.

The Great Lisbon Earthquake
Works Cited
Luiz, Mendez, Carlos, Olivera, and Joab, Azevedo. The 1755 Lisbon Earthquake. New York: Springer Science and Business Media. 2008. Print.
Phyllis, Marcuccio. Earthquakes: A Teacher’s package for K-6. Collingdale: DIANE Publishing. 1999. Print.
John, Rafferty. Plate Tectonics, Volcanoes, and Earthquakes. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group. 2010. Print.