Several people I know in person, including myself, do not understand how the move Earthquake logically makes sense. Yeah, sure it is super cool for a little kid: "Oh yeah! My Rhydon cause an entire earthquake to kill your Charizard!!!" "Ha! shows what you know, Charizard is a flying......"
But seriously, do pokemon actually create an entire earthquake just to hit the opponent?!!? First of all, it would destroy the entire neighboring city. Second of all, even if there was an earthquake, it wouldn't hurt you. Nobody can get hurt by the ground shaking around below them, unless objects were falling on top of you. Third, in the anime and manga, the user doesn't actually cause an earthquake. Instead, they more or less shoot some concentrated shockwave through the ground towards the opponent, or they cause the ground to lift below their feet(Colosseum/XD on gc). Technically, this isn't even an earthquake, so it seems that earthquake is some sort of misnomer.
How does earthquake actually work? Any theories? Is it not actually an earthquake? What would be a better name for a ground type move that did what 'earthquake' did (shoot a shockwave at the opponent instead of causing large-scale destruction of a mile-radius area)? Shockwave sound like a better name for the same move but it is already an electric type move.