Tectonic Plate Is on the Move.

PositionJUAN DE FUCA

A few hundred miles off the Pacific Northwest coast, a small tectonic plate called the Juan de Fuca slowly is sliding under the North American continent. This subduction has created a collision zone with the potential to generate huge earthquakes and accompanying tsunamis, which happen when faulted rock abrupty shoves the ocean out of its way

In fact, this region represents the single greatest geophysical hazard to the continental U.S.; quakes centered here could register as hundreds of times more damaging than even a big temblor on the San Andreas Fault. Not surprisingly, scientists are interested in understanding as much as they can about the Juan de Fuca Plate.

This microplate was "born" just 300 miles off the coast, at a long range of underwater volcanoes that produce new crust from melt generated deep below. Part of the global mid-ocean ridge system that encircles the planet, these regions generate 70% of the Earth's tectonic plates. However, because the chains of volcanoes lie more than a mile beneath the sea surface, scientists know little about them.

Zachary Ellon, professor of earth science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Geoff...

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