I basically want to understand if earthquakes can simply happen anywhere, or if there are some conditions for earthquakes to happen in an area.
In: Planetary Science
Because “earthquake” only means “the ground starts shaking,” they can happen anywhere–but the reasons will differ from place to place. A cave collapsing, for example, can cause an earthquake.
*Most* earthquakes are caused by plate tectonics (read: the Earth’s crust is not one solid sphere, it’s a bunch of chunky bits sitting on top of the mantle, and sometimes they push against each other or under/over each other), but some are caused by volcanism, very large impact events (e.g. the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs), or other such things.
As a general rule, though, *major* or *frequent* earthquakes only occur near fault lines or volcanic activity, and earthquakes are usually very rare anywhere else.
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