Webdesk: According to Futurism, University of Washington scientists found a hole 50 miles off the Pacific Northwest coast that might generate a big earthquake.
Scientists say the hole is on Oregon’s Cascadia Subduction Zone fault.
The University of Washington researchers noted the leaking “may not be a great omen for earthquake activity in the region.”
A seafloor-exploring robot found “unexpected plumes of bubbles about three-quarters of a mile beneath the ocean’s surface,” according to the news release.
“Pythias’ Oasis” named after an oracle who hallucinated prophesies while sitting on a hot spring. The leaking could create an earthquake.
The scientists discovered “the bubbles were just a minor component of warm, chemically distinct fluid gushing from the seafloor sediment.”
Evan Solomon, a UW associate professor of oceanography and seafloor geology, said, “They explored in that direction and what they saw not just methane bubbles, but water coming out of the seafloor like a firehose.”
“That’s something I’ve never seen,” Solomon said.
After its 2015 discovery, the Pacific Northwest seafloor leak interested scientists.
Tectonic plates excrete lubricant
Science Advances suggests that tectonic plates excrete lubricant, causing this seeping.
The research implies that without the leak, stress would have piled up. It possibly triggered a huge tectonic plate shift, causing an earthquake.
The spring’s first discoverer, UW oceanography graduate and White House policy advisor Brendan Philip, told the researchers that “the strange fluid shooting out of the spring is warmer than the water surrounding it by 16 degrees Fahrenheit, and per the team’s calculations, this suggests that the fluid is coming straight from the Cascadia megathrust, where temperatures are an estimated 150 to 250 degrees Celsius [300 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit].
The statement stated that “Loss of fluid from the offshore megathrust interface through these strike-slip faults is important because it lowers the fluid pressure between the sediment particles and hence increases the friction between the oceanic and continental plates.”
“Lower fluid pressure locks the plates,” he noted. Stress builds then.”
Researchers found a fresh leak under the ocean, but they expect to find more nearby.
The discovery has allowed experts to explore a new tectonic plate phenomenon that causes earthquakes. As well as warns of future natural calamities.
