FAULT LINES AROUND THE WORLD

Discover the dangers and benefits of Earth's cracked crust. Is there a fault line beneath your feet?

- WORDS AILSA HARVEY

Our planet may look sturdy, but its outermost layer of solid rock - the crust - is actually fractured into massive uneven segments. These segments are known as tectonic plates, which float on the semi-fluid mantle below. All of these plates are constantly moving at a very slow rate of around 1.5 to 15 centimetres per year - that's a similar speed to the growth of your fingernails. This means that, inevitably, the plates interact with each other at their boundaries. As plates move, they can pull apart, push together - causing land to rise in the middle - or slide past each other. These movements cause breaks in the crust, mostly along tectonic plate boundaries.