Sentences with phrase «in subduction zones»

In both subduction zones, the converging plates are thought to be accumulating strain which could be released in a very large and violent rupture.

Megathrusts, the huge continuous faults found in subduction zones, are responsible for Earth's largest earthquakes.

The observation of the formation and breakdown of the super-hydrated kaolinite bears important information about the processes that occur over a depth range of about 75 kilometres to 480 kilometres in subduction zones.

Thus, the study could improve the understanding of the geochemical processes in subduction zones of the earth.

«We are interested in large - scale geophysical processes, like how plate tectonics initiates and how plates move underneath one another in subduction zones,» said David Goldsby, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Similar results have recently been obtained in another subduction zones.

Stresses in subduction zones are found to be low, although the smaller amount of stress can still lead to a great earthquake.

Scientists have long thought diamonds could form in subduction zones, where one tectonic plate plunges under another and sinks hundreds of kilometers into the mantle.

SASMEX tracks seismicity in the subduction zone through 97 seismic monitoring stations.

SASMEX's main focus is on earthquakes originating in the subduction zone off the southern coast of Mexico, where the Cocos tectonic plate subducts below the North American Plate.

The Tehuantepec earthquake originated offshore in the subduction zone, while the Morelos earthquake was an example of in - slab seismicity.

To get such a high mountain chain in a subduction zone setting is unusual which adds to the importance of trying to figure out when and how it happened.

Events of this magnitude normally occur in a subduction zone, where one tectonic plate slides beneath another.

The strain that is released in a subduction zone earthquake is thought to build up in the deep portion of the fault where the two plates are «locked.»

Hawai'i is especially vulnerable to a tsunami created by an earthquake in the subduction zone of the Aleutian Islands.

In a subduction zone, a heavy oceanic plate meets a second, lighter continental plate and moves under it and into the earth's mantle.

Last week's temblor may have relieved pressure in one of two «seismic gaps» in the subduction zone off Mexico's coast, where tectonic plates grind past one another.

A similar event happens in a subduction zone on Earth.

Not exact matches

An apocalyptically - worded story in the latest issue of the New Yorker detailed the devastation that might result from a high - magnitude earthquake along the Cascadia subduction zone, a fault line that runs from Cape Mendocino, Calif., to Vancouver Island, Canada.

These initial results provide fundamental insights into the behavior of rare, very large earthquakes that may aid in preparation and early warning efforts for future tsunamis following subduction zone earthquakes.

However, the seismic potential of crustal faults within the forearc of the northern Cascadia subduction zone in British Columbia has remained elusive.

What's more, when the minerals return to the surface in the forearcs of subduction zones, they can break down over millions of years, releasing gases back to atmosphere once again.

Cascadia, however, is classified as the quietest subduction zone in the world.

«The only way to explain the subsidence of the islands is to have a rupture... in the very deep part of the subduction zone, between 40 and 60 km (25 to 40 miles) depth,» Feuillet said.

«Measuring the strength of olivine is critical to understanding how strong tectonic plates are, which, in turn, matters to how plates break and create subduction zones like those along the Cascadia plate, which runs down the west coast of Canada to the west coast of the United States,» said Warren, a geologist in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment.

In the early 1980s, two Caltech geophysicists, Tom Heaton and Hiroo Kanamori, compared Cascadia to active quake - prone subduction zones along the coasts of Chile and Alaska and to the Nankai Trough off the coast of Japan.

Scientists have long wondered what accounts for that precipitous dive, and why the massive earthquakes that generate long - ranging tsunamis at other subduction zones have not been recorded in the trench.

Here we are not dealing with large volcanic eruptions of the size of Pinatubo of Mount St. Helens, here we are talking about extreme events: The Toba caldera in the Sumatra subduction zone in Indonesia originated from one of the largest volcanic eruption in recent Earth history, about 74,000 years ago.

The Earth's lithosphere is divided into several plates that are in constant motion, and today's geologists have a good understanding of what drives these plate movements: heavier ocean plates are submerged beneath lighter continental plates along what are known as subduction zones.

In 1964 a region of this same tectonic clash, called the Alaska — Aleutian Subduction Zone, produced the magnitude 9.2 «Good Friday» earthquake, the second - strongest quake ever recorded.

But just as in the past, earth scientists still do not understand what triggered plate tectonics in the first place, nor how the first subduction zone was formed.

Most earthquakes are said to occur at subduction zones or along faults in tectonic plates.

The Cascadia subduction zone (CSZ) has captured major attention from paleoseismologists due to evidence from several large (magnitude 8 - 9) earthquakes preserved in coastal salt marshes.

In fact, lava emerging from hotspot volcanoes is known to differ chemically and isotopically from lava from other volcanoes, such as those erupting at subduction zones where Earth's crust dives into the upper mantle.

Schellart's model, which took more than two years to complete on Australia's supercomputer Raijin, has reproduced the evolution of the South American subduction zone, from start to present (initiating some 200 million years ago and thereby the oldest subduction zone in the world), to investigate the origin of the Andes.

The Tohoku - Oki earthquake occurred in a «subduction zone,» a boundary between two tectonic plates where one plate is diving beneath another — in this case, the Pacific plate dives beneath the Eurasian plate just east of Japan.

The findings could apply to other faults with similarly thick sediment, such as the Cascadia Subduction Zone in the Pacific Northwest, suggests study coauthor Andre Hüpers, a geophysicist at the University of Bremen in Germany.

Because the South American subduction zone is so wide, it provides much resistance to migrate laterally, in particular in the centre.

Since 1900, numerous magnitude 8 or larger earthquakes have occurred on this subduction zone interface that were followed by devastating tsunamis, including the 1960 M9.5 earthquake in southern Chile, the largest instrumentally recorded earthquake in the world.

«The implication of a confirmed subduction zone is that in addition to the Queen Charlotte Fault, we now have another source which can produce devastating megathrust earthquakes in the area,» said Kao.

Although the rate of subduction varies little along the entire arc, there are complex changes in the geologic processes along the subduction zone that dramatically influence volcanic activity, crustal deformation, earthquake generation and occurrence all along the western edge of South America.

In these regions of «flat - slab» subduction, the Nazca plate moves horizontally for several hundred kilometers before continuing its descent into the mantle, and is shadowed by an extended zone of crustal seismicity in the overlying South America platIn these regions of «flat - slab» subduction, the Nazca plate moves horizontally for several hundred kilometers before continuing its descent into the mantle, and is shadowed by an extended zone of crustal seismicity in the overlying South America platin the overlying South America plate.

The Sea of Okhotsk earthquake may have involved re-rupture of a fault in the plate produced when the oceanic plate bent down into the Kuril - Kamchatka subduction zone as it began to sink.

He discovered that the occurrence of deep ocean floor rocks, volcanic rocks and deformed rocks, which are currently found in the mountain ranges of New Guinea, point to the existence of a 4000 km wide subduction zone.

«At the time this thing formed, it was in the middle of a basin that was nowhere near a subduction zone — it was nowhere near the kind of geologic activity that would cause a volcano to form.»

Plans to build the nation's first tsunami - resistant building are unfolding in Cannon Beach, Ore., in a region that is almost identical, seismically, to the subduction zone that triggered the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last week.

Research teams have evaluated the major 7.8 magnitude subduction zone earthquake in Gorkha, Nepal, in April 2015, and identified characteristics that may be of special relevance to the future of the Pacific Northwest.

Ward modeled the effects of a magnitude 9.2 earthquake in the Cascadia subduction zone — a 58,000 - square - mile region in the Pacific from British Columbia to Northern California where the Juan de Fuca plate sinks beneath the North American plate.

One of the primary questions they hope to answer is whether the pressures and temperatures experienced at depth here lead to the unusual properties of this subduction zone fault, and if that in turn leads to larger and more powerful earthquakes.

Scientists have discovered that the last subduction zone earthquake to hit the Pacific Northwest was in January 1700, when — like now — soils probably would have been soggy from winter rains and most vulnerable to landslides.