ANSWER: Earthquakes
Explanation:
Earthquakes can be the cause of changes in earth’s crust close to 6,000 km away, changing the ability to tolerate stresses for a new weeks, according to researchers. Scientists have found that the earth is interconnected and dynamic whereby one large, massive earthquake can create cascading sequence of events 1000s of km away. While the surface wave from the earthquake passing through another fault region causes frictional properties that ensure surfaces are locked together, elasticity allows crust to withstand strain and stress state can lead to failure. While surface waves pass through, the properties rearrange and change. This discovery was made by examining the 2012 earthquake off the coast of North Sumatra in the Indian Ocean.
The earthquake, which had a magnitude of 8.6, is known to have been followed by two earthquakes in Japan with a magnitude greater than 5.5.
