Karen Ciolko, age 10, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for her question:

Does an earthquake make a big noise?

A weak little earthquake is quite quiet. True, it may shake a few pots and pans around and cause them to make a clatter. But most earthquakes are too weak to do even this much. They just cause the ground to shiver a little and if you are not paying attention, you w,3uld_not notice anything at all. But a large earthquake is something else. It shifts around great slabs of the earth's crust. These mighty slabs are many miles deep and perhaps half as big as the state of Pennsylvania. Naturally such a mighty heaving around creates a noisy uproar.

Even a medium sized earthquake can cause deep underground rumblings and sometimes a loud crack. The sound of a major quake is louder, much louder than thunder. And before the underground noise stops, the shaking ground brings buildings tumbling down. Their crashing sounds are added to the rumbling roar that the earthquake makes deep down in the bowels of the earth