Interesting: in that big earthquake last week the P waves arrived first, with the S waves later.
“This computer simulation shows how the seismic waves of the Oct 30th 2018 magnitude 6.2 earthquake were propagated across New Zealand.”
Yorrike S waves are significantly slower than P waves, so you can guage if an earthquake is at a distance of it comes in two phases - like that one, which was hundreds of km deep and away.
Miraz Jordan @yorrike Which also explains why the local pheasants tend to squawk before we feel the quake with some of them.
Yorrike You’ll feel the P waves, that’s the back and forth motion. S waves are more side-to-side or up and down (they look like an S, while the P waves look like a spring expanding and contracting). There’s other seismic waves like surface waves and (I kid you not) Love waves. Not sure what the pheasants feel before the P waves arrive…
Disclaimer: I am a geologist.
Miraz Jordan @yorrike Aha! Thanks for the additional info. I love learning about stuff. 😀