24 How Earthquakes and Volcanoes Shape Earth

How Earthquakes and Volcanoes Shape Earth by BARBARA COLLIER With the Editors of TIME FOR KIDS

地震和火山是如何塑造地球的芭芭拉·科利尔与《儿童时代》的编辑们合著的

CHAPTER 1 Our Home the Earth Roar! An earthquake shakes the ground. Crash! A tree falls down. Whoosh! A volcano explodes. Lava pours down the sides. Lava is a very hot liquid rock. It destroys everything in its path. Volcanoes and earthquakes are natural disasters. A natural disaster is a force of nature. It can cause harm, or destroy things. A hurricane is a natural disaster. A tornado is a natural disaster, too. Maybe in the future people will stop natural disasters. But is that a good thing? Maybe not. Earthquakes and volcanoes can be bad. But they can be good, too. To understand this, we can learn how Earth is put together.

第一章我们的家园地球咆哮!地震使地面震动。 崩溃!一棵树倒了。嗖!火山爆发了。 熔岩从两边倾泻而下。 熔岩是一种非常热的液态岩石。 它摧毁了所到之处的一切。 火山和地震是自然灾害。 自然灾害是一种自然力量。 它可以造成伤害，或者破坏东西。 飓风是一种自然灾害。 龙卷风也是一种自然灾害。 也许在未来人们会阻止自然灾害。 但这是一件好事吗?也许不是。 地震和火山可能很糟糕。 但它们也可以是好的。 为了理解这一点，我们可以了解地球是如何组成的。

CHAPTER 2 Our Planet is a Puzzle A rock crust covers Earth. Very large pieces of rock form that crust. We call these pieces tectonic plates. They fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. They float over a layer of hot, melted rock. Earth's continents cover some of these plates. The oceans cover the others. The plates move slowly. Usually, you cannot tell they move. Imagine a lake filled with big floating rafts. Some rafts bump into each other. Other rafts float apart. Earth's plates float like these rafts. The plates meet in one place. This place is called a fault. Many earthquakes and volcanoes happen near faults.

第2章我们的星球是个谜。地壳覆盖着地球。 非常大的岩石块形成了地壳。 我们称这些碎片为构造板块。 它们像拼图一样拼合在一起。 它们漂浮在一层炙热融化的岩石上。 地球上的大陆覆盖了其中一些板块。 海洋覆盖了其他地方。 板块移动缓慢。通常，你看不出它们在动。 想象一个湖中满是巨大的浮筏。 一些木筏相互碰撞。 其他木筏则分开漂浮。地球板块就像这些木筏一样漂浮着。 这些盘子在一个地方会合。 这个地方叫做断层。 许多地震和火山都发生在断层附近。

CHAPTER 3 When the Earth Shook Earthquakes and volcanoes cause great harm. But they also helped to shape Earth. About 250 million years ago, Earth had just one big piece of land. There was ocean around the land. Then Earth shook and things crashed. Lava poured out of holes in the ground. The earthquakes and volcanoes helped break the land into smaller pieces. Now, millions of years later, we have continents. When Earth was a new planet, there was no air to breathe. For millions of years, volcanoes erupted, or poured out lava. Gases from inside Earth poured out. Those gases made the air we breathe. Then life began on Earth.

地震和火山爆发造成巨大的危害。 但它们也帮助塑造了地球。 大约2.5亿年前，地球上只有一大块陆地。 陆地周围是海洋。 然后地球震动了，东西坠毁了。 熔岩从地洞中涌出。 地震和火山爆发使陆地分裂成更小的碎片。 几百万年后的今天，我们有了大陆。 当地球还是个新行星的时候，没有空气可以呼吸。 数百万年来，火山喷发，或者说喷出熔岩。 地球内部的气体涌出。 这些气体构成了我们呼吸的空气。 然后地球上开始了生命。

CHAPTER 4 Volcanoes Two tectonic plates can grind together at a fault. One can slide under the other and get stuck. There is a hot layer of rock below Earth's crust. It heats the end of the plate. The end of the plate melts. It mixes with bubbles of gas. Hot lava bursts out of the ground. A volcano forms! When a volcano erupts, big rocks, ash, and hot gases burst out with the lava. A volcano can destroy everything around it. Another Look In some places, we use heat from liquid rock inside Earth to make electricity. That is good. But this liquid rock is lava. Lava can cause much harm when a volcano erupts. Almost 2,000 years ago, Pompeii was a town in Italy. It was near a beautiful mountain called Mount Vesuvius. The mountain was really a volcano. But its last eruption was hundreds of years earlier. Suddenly, the top of the quiet mountain blew! People tried to run away. But rocks, ash, and lava buried the town and all the people. Pompeii is a sad example of how volcanoes can cause great harm.

两个构造板块可以在断层处互相摩擦。 一个可以滑到另一个下面，然后被卡住。 地壳下面有一层热岩石。 它加热了盘子的末端。 盘子的末端融化了。 它与气泡混合。 炽热的熔岩从地下喷涌而出。 火山形成了!当火山喷发时，大块的岩石、火山灰和热气随着熔岩喷发出来。 火山可以摧毁它周围的一切。 在一些地方，我们利用地球内部液态岩石的热量来发电。 这很好。但这种液态岩石是熔岩。 火山爆发时，熔岩会造成很大的伤害。 大约两千年前，庞贝是意大利的一个小镇。 它靠近一座美丽的叫做维苏威火山的山。 这座山实际上是一座火山。 但它最后一次喷发要比这早几百年。 突然，寂静的山顶起了风!人们试图逃跑。 但是岩石、火山灰和熔岩埋葬了小镇和所有的人。 庞贝是火山如何造成巨大危害的一个可悲的例子。