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It has been hypothesized that a major earthquake along the Cascadia subduction zone could trigger a rupture along the San Andreas Fault. [2] [3] [4] In the south, the fault terminates near Bombay Beach, California, in the Salton Sea. Here, the plate motion transitions from right-lateral to divergent, characteristic of the East Pacific Rise ...
Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic forces, with the largest forming the boundaries between the plates, such as the megathrust faults of subduction zones or transform faults. [1] Energy release associated with rapid movement on active faults is the cause of most earthquakes.
Where the plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of plate boundary (or fault): convergent, divergent, or transform. The relative movement of the plates typically ranges from zero to 10 cm annually. [5] Faults tend to be geologically active, experiencing earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation.
An earthquake is what happens when the seismic energy from plates slipping past each other rattles the planet's surface. Those seismic waves are like ripples on a pond, the USGS said.
A particularly dangerous form of slow earthquake is the tsunami earthquake, observed where the relatively low felt intensities, caused by the slow propagation speed of some great earthquakes, fail to alert the population of the neighboring coast, as in the 1896 Sanriku earthquake.
Their work will give modelers a sharper view of the possible impacts of a megathrust earthquake there — the term for a quake that occurs in a subduction zone, where one tectonic plate is thrust ...
Indo-Australian plate – Major tectonic plate formed by the fusion of the Indian and Australian plates (sometimes considered to be two separate tectonic plates) – 58,900,000 km 2 (22,700,000 sq mi) Australian plate – Major tectonic plate separated from Indo-Australian plate about 3 million years ago – 47,000,000 km 2 (18,000,000 sq mi)
The New Madrid seismic zone (NMSZ), sometimes called the New Madrid fault line (or fault zone or fault system), is a major seismic zone and a prolific source of intraplate earthquakes (earthquakes within a tectonic plate) in the Southern and Midwestern United States, stretching to the southwest from New Madrid, Missouri.