ECHOES OF THE LAST MIND

ORIGIN: https://www.yourweather.co.uk/news/

Scientists have recorded for the first time a tectonic plate breaking apart beneath the ocean off the coast of Canada, revealing how subduction zones fragment.

A crack in the tectonic plate was recorded in the Cascadia region, off the coast of Canada — unprecedented evidence of active rupture beneath the ocean floor observed by scientists. Credit: Reproduction Science Daily

For the first time in history, scientists have managed to record a tectonic plate breaking apart beneath the ocean floor. The phenomenon was observed off the coast of Vancouver Island, Canada, in the Cascadia region, where the Juan de Fuca and Explorer plates are fragmenting beneath the North American plate.

The discovery, published in the journal Science Advances, provides an unprecedented view of the beginning of the end of a subduction zone—an area where one plate plunges beneath another, generating volcanoes and earthquakes. “This is the first time we have a clear image of a subduction zone on the verge of extinction,” stated geologist Brandon Shuck of Louisiana State University (USA), lead author of the study.

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