History Main / EarthquakesCauseFissures

* ''IndianaJones and the Last Crusade''. When Dr. Elsa Schneider crosses the seal while holding the Grail, a mammoth earthquake hits and causes huge cracks to form in the cave. Dr. Schneider falls in, as does Indy later on (I think some {{Mooks}} fall in too).

* {{One Piece}}'s Whitebeard and his Quake Quake fruit. [[spoiler: And now [[BigBad Blackbeard]] has it...]]

* The Quake spells in in ''FinalFantasyI, [[FinalFantasyIII III]], [[FinalFantasyIV IV]], and [[FinalFantasyVIII VIII]]''. Oddly enough, in ''FinalFantasyVI'' the thing just creates an actual hole.
** Doesn't [[FinalFantasyVIII VIII]]'s Quake spell just make the various blocks of the ground bounce up and down under the enemies (or allies)?

* The Quake spells in in ''FinalFantasy, [[FinalFantasy III]], [[FinalFantasy IV]], and [[FinalFantasy VIII]]''. Oddly enough, in ''FinalFantasyVI'' the thing just creates an actual hole.
** Doesn't [[FinalFantasy VIII]]'s Quake spell just make the various blocks of the ground bounce up and down under the enemies (or allies)?

* [[AvertedTrope Averted]] in {{Pokemon}}: Earthquake and Fissure are separate moves. However, in ''Pokemon Stadium'', it shares the same animation as Fissure, so they're only told apart by effect: Earthquake is a powerful, yet average Ground move (i.e. not very effective against Grass and Bug, no effect on Flying...) while Fissure causes an OHKO if it connects.

* In the infamous "Mama Luigi" episode of ''SuperMarioWorld'', a "Fire Sumo" stomps the ground, causing cracks to open and Luigi to fall through. Of course, this couldn't happen in the game.

* In ''[[TheWizardOfOz Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz]]'', Dorothy is visiting California when a crack in the ground swallows her up during an earthquake, and she and her companions fall to the center of the earth. Fortunately, in the book this is a habitable place.

* Disney's Fantasia during The Rite of Spring. The fissures are up to 20 feet wide and swallow whole dinosaur skeletons.

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* In ''[[TheWizardOfOz Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz]]'', Dorothy is visiting California when a crack in the ground swallows her up during an earthquake, and she and her companions fall to the center of the earth. Fortunately, in the book this is a habitable place.
* The protagonist in ''{{Shogun}}'' gets a very powerful friend by saving him from such a fall during an earthquake.
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** The [[EarthShatteringKaboom earthquake]] that Kefka causes halfway through VI. There's a big montage of seismic faults and fissures opening up in the ground all over the place during the cutscene. Possibly justified, as it wasn't just an earthquake, Kefka was literally reshaping the world.

* MagicTheGathering has an Earthquake card that insinuates that it opens fissures.

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* {{One Piece}}'s Whitebeard and his Quake Quake fruit. [[spoiler: And now [[BigBad Blackbeard]] has it...]]

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Fissures more directly related to earthquakes ''can'' happen. When a normal (extensional) fault slips, the soil near the surface can rip apart on a vertical rupture (the actual fault plane being at about a 45 degree slope), producing a fissure. It will, however, usually be fairly small, less than a metre wide. At most a few unlucky people might fall down and get stuck.

* [[AvertedTrope Averted]] in {{Pokemon}}: Earthquake and Fissure are separate moves. However, in ''Pokemon Stadium'', it shares the same animation as Fissure, so they're only told apart by effect: Earthquake is a powerful, yet average Ground move (i.e. not very effective against Water, no effect on Flying...) while Fissure causes an OHKO if it connects.

* In the earthquake episode of SpikeTV's ''Surviving Disaster'', a massive earthquake along the New Madrid fault line (y'know, the one in ''mid-eastern U.S.'', the one that hasn't had a major earthquake since ''1812''?) creates an equally massive sinkhole in a park.

* ''{{Superman}}'' (1978). Scenes of the destruction of the planet Krypton included [[strike:earthquakes]] Kryptonquakes, with cracks opening up and many Kryptonians falling to their doom.
** The film also has another example. When the missile hits California, it causes a quake which opens a fissure, which Lois Lane's car drops into.
** This are both strangely JustifiedTrope examples by the fact that technically these are fissure events which lead to earthquakes not the other way around. Krypton is exploding and California is breaking off from the continent to drop into the sea. These are so positively unscientific in 101 other ways that makes asking for further justification pointless.

** You might be forgetting about the ''other'' [[EarthShatteringKaboom earthquake]] that Kefka causes halfway through VI. There's a big montage of seismic faults and fissures opening up in the ground all over the place during the cutscene.
*** To be fair, Kefka WAS reshaping the world. Some shaking is bound to happen.

In reality, the ground actually just shakes, shifts and quakes- the physical damage is usually to structures ''on'' the ground, not the ground itself. If fissures do open up, it is usually due to a landslide triggered by the quake, which means they're restricted to hillsides, mountains, and cliffs.

* Actually, fissures more directly related to earthquakes CAN happen. When a normal (extensional) fault slips, the soil near the surface can rip apart on a vertical rupture (the actual fault plane being at about a 45 degree slope), producing a fissure. It will, however, usually be fairly small, less than a metre wide. At most a few unlucky people might fall down and get stuck.

** Another [[JustifiedTrope justified]] one. Missouri is riddled with caves and limestome. In addition there is so much coal mining under cities and towns that mine subsidence is a valid insurance policy. Since sinkholes while rare are unsurprising without an earthquake, with one is completely plausiable. Also the 1812 earthquake re-routed the Mississippi river. {{SoYeah}}....

*[[AvertedTrope Averted]] in {{Pokemon}}: Earthquake and Fissure are separate moves. However, in ''Pokemon Stadium'', it shares the same animation as Fissure.