Earthquakes are the shaking of the ground caused by a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust. They are often related to the movement of tectonic plates, which are large sections of the Earth's lithosphere that float on the semi-fluid asthenosphere below.
Tectonic plates are constantly moving due to the heat generated from the Earth's core, causing them to collide, separate, or slide past each other. When these plates interact, stress builds up along the plate boundaries until it is released in the form of an earthquake. The sudden movement of the plates along faults in the Earth's crust results in seismic waves that propagate through the ground, causing the shaking that we feel during an earthquake.
