Download McKain

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share with you this crucial information.
Earthquakes affect much of what happens in the United States and around the world
and knowledge of earthquakes is important to the safety and well-being of the people of
the world.
The earth’s crust, as you probably know, is divided into parts called tectonic plates.
These plates are constantly moving and every time they come in contact with each
other, an earthquake occurs. Consequently, earthquakes are most likely to occur on
plate boundaries. Fifteen main plates have been discovered thus far though further
research and documentation may prove otherwise. In the United States, the main
earthquake “danger zones” are in Northwest Washington state and up into Alaska along
the Juan De Fuca Plate, In southern California along the North American and Pacific
plates and on the San Andreas Fault, as well as in the island state of Hawaii.
Because we know that earthquakes occur along faultlines, we can, for the most part,
predict where most earthquakes happen. When a plate has a rugged boundary and is
more likely to collide with another plate as it moves, this creates a larger likelihood of an
earthquake and places along plate boundaries, like I said earlier, are more likely to
experience earthquakes. However, there might be more plates that have not been
discovered yet, so earthquakes could happen anywhere.
Sometimes there is a relationship between earthquakes and volcanoes but at the
moment I am not entirely positive of the exact connection. I have not done enough
research on the topic of volcanoes to know much about this but if it is important for you
to know about this, I have an extremely resourceful teacher by the name of Donna Cole
who you might ask. If it is needed, I am more than willing to do more research on this
topic, but I apologize for not having this information for you at this time.
Thank you again for your time and I am happy to be of service. Feel free to contact me if
you have any questions or concerns regarding earthquakes.
Sincerely,
McKain, student, Edison Elementary