A better understanding of earthquakes and their effect on a structure will help individuals understand the reasons for and the importance of implementing these steps. Utah experiences about 700 earthquakes every year. Of this number, about 13 are Richter magnitude 3.0 or greater. Smaller magnitude earthquakes are rarely felt by people and obviously do not cause damage. However, these small rumblings are important in studying our vulnerability to larger earthquakes.
Earthquakes occur on faults or cracks in the earth s crust.
Utah has many active faults which could produce damaging earthquakes. The 180-mile long Wasatch Fault Zone is broken into several segments. Each segment, about 20 to 30 miles long, may produce it s own earthquake independent of other segments.