Miles Del3anovan, age 12, of Tucson, Ariz., for his question:

Could an earthquake happen in Tucson?

It is possible for an earthquake to happen anywhere in the world, on land or under the sea. However, some areas get hardly any at all. Some areas, called earthquake belts, get more than their share. But even here, serious earthquakes are very few and far between. Even people who live in earthquake regions do not worry much about them.

The earthquake belt nearest to Tucson runs down the Pacific coast. As in other earthquake belts, it is a region of new mountains. To the south, this region of unrest is wide enough to reach over into Arizona. So you could feel the earthquake in Tucson, though it is not likely and it is certainly nothing to lose any sleep about. Most earthquakes are so slight that people hardly feel them. The big ones are very rare.