Comparing an Earthquake to a Drop of Water

In this Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology resource we look at how an earthquake can be compared to a water drop that is suspended from a faucet and falls into a pool creating ripples. Like the drop that falls, earthquakes result from the sudden conversion of potential energy, stored elastically in rocks, to kinetic energy. Then, like the ripples on water, the released energy travels outward in all directions, including through the Earth, as seismic waves.