not only in the language of the street, but in the media themselves, is confused, referring to focus where earthquakes occur, the hypocenter to the epicenter. So I think it's interesting the explanation provided in the section 'The word of the day' of the English language page interesting http://www.elcastellano.org .
THE WORD OF THE DAY
epicenter
In recent days, much of the press has endorsed the error of identifying the epicenter of the earthquake in Japan as the place where the collision of two tectonic plates, about six miles deep. The Argentine daily La Nacion said on Saturday, 12 on its website:
The newspaper was actually referring to the hypocenter of the earthquake, as defined in the dictionary as the "point inside the earth's crust where an earthquake originates."
Earthquakes occur due to shock or friction of tectonic plates of Earth's crust. In place of the fault, which is called the hypocenter , generates an energy that spreads in concentric waves, which reach the surface to cause earthquakes, tidal waves and tsunamis. If from the hypocenter draw a vertical line segment away from the center of the Earth, the point of intersection between this segment and the surface the planet is called epicenter a point that by definition can not be below the surface.
In fact, the dictionary is defined as the epicenter "of the area surface center of a seismic disturbance, which falls on the hypocenter.
Both words are formed with the center word to which prefixes are placed before the Greek epi- (on, above) and hypo (below), respectively.
Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia, Dictionary of the English Language
In recent days, much of the press has endorsed the error of identifying the epicenter of the earthquake in Japan as the place where the collision of two tectonic plates, about six miles deep. The Argentine daily La Nacion said on Saturday, 12 on its website:
"... the epicenter of the quake, which lasted two minutes, was located at a depth of 10 kilometers ...".
The newspaper was actually referring to the hypocenter of the earthquake, as defined in the dictionary as the "point inside the earth's crust where an earthquake originates."
Earthquakes occur due to shock or friction of tectonic plates of Earth's crust. In place of the fault, which is called the hypocenter , generates an energy that spreads in concentric waves, which reach the surface to cause earthquakes, tidal waves and tsunamis. If from the hypocenter draw a vertical line segment away from the center of the Earth, the point of intersection between this segment and the surface the planet is called epicenter a point that by definition can not be below the surface.
In fact, the dictionary is defined as the epicenter "of the area surface center of a seismic disturbance, which falls on the hypocenter.
Both words are formed with the center word to which prefixes are placed before the Greek epi- (on, above) and hypo (below), respectively.
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