Natural disaster seismic waves. At the Earth's surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by vibration, shaking, and sometimes displacement of the ground. Earthquakes are caused by slippage within geological faults. The underground point of origin of the earthquake is called the "seismic focus". The point directly above the focus on the surface is called the "epicenter". Earthquakes by themselves rarely kill people or wildlife. It is usually the secondary events that they trigger such as building collapse, fires, tsunamis (seismic sea waves) and volcanoes. Many of these could possibly be avoided by better construction, safety systems, early warning and planning. When natural erosion, human
Seismic metamaterial the electromagnetic energy is in effect directed around an object, or hole, and protecting buildings from seismic waves employs this same principle. Giant polymer-made split ring resonators combined with other metamaterials are designed to couple at the seismic wavelength. Concentric layers of this material would be stacked, each layer separated by an elastic medium. The design that worked is ten layers of six different materials, which can be easily deployed in building foundations. As of 2009, the project is still in the design stage. For seismic metamaterials to protect surface structures, the proposal includes a layered structure of metamaterials, separated