New subduction zone may increase quake risk in the Mediterranean
Subduction zones form where tectonic plates collide, with one plate diving beneath the other and into Earth's mantle. Sometimes these collisions are gradual, but often they occur in big lurches that can trigger quakes.Because subduction zones are generally on seabeds, earthquakes in these zones can set off tsunamis, like the killer wave that devastated Japan last month.
For millions of years the African plate, which contains part of the Mediterranean seabed, has been moving northward toward the Eurasian Plate at a rate of about an inch every 2.5 years (a centimeter a year).
Now studies of recent earthquakes in the region indicate that a new subduction zone may be forming where the plates are colliding along the coasts of Algeria and northern Sicily (see a map of the region).
"Formation of a new subduction zone is very rare," said study leader Rinus Wortel, a geophysicist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
هیچ نظری موجود نیست:
ارسال یک نظر