Plate Motion
The absolute motion of the Nazca Plate has been calibrated at 3.7 cm/yr east motion (88°), some of the fastest absolute motion of any tectonic plate. The subducting Nazca Plate, which exhibits unusual flat-slab subduction, is tearing as well as deforming as it is subducted (Barzangi and Isacks). The subduction has formed, and continues to form, the volcanic Andes Mountain Range. Deformation of the Nazca Plate even affects the geography of Bolivia, far to the east (Tinker et al.). It was on the Nazca Plate that the 1994 Bolivia earthquake occurred, measuring a magnitude MW of 8.2 and the strongest earthquake occurring deeper than 300 km.
Luckily, very few islands are there to suffer the earthquakes that are a result of complicated movements at these junctions. Juan Fernández Islands is an exception.
Read more about this topic: Nazca Plate
Famous quotes containing the words plate and/or motion:
“I sometimes have the sense that I live my life as a writer with my nose pressed against the wide, shiny plate glass window of the mainstream culture. The world seems full of straight, large-circulation, slick periodicals which wouldnt think of reviewing my book and bookstores which will never order it.”
—Jan Clausen (b. 1943)
“Motion or change, and identity or rest, are the first and second secrets of nature: Motion and Rest. The whole code of her laws may be written on the thumbnail, or the signet of a ring.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)