How to Build and Teach with QuakeCaster, an Earthquake Demonstration and Exploration Tool

QuakeCaster is an interactive, hands-on teaching model that simulates earthquakes and their interactions along a plate-boundary fault. QuakeCaster contains the minimum number of physical processes needed to demonstrate most observable earthquake features. A winch to steadily reel in a line simulates the steady plate tectonic motions far from the plate boundaries. A granite slider in frictional contact with a porcelain rock-like surface simulates a fault at a plate boundary.