Deep earthquake rocked Russia
At 9:45 MSK deep beneath the Okhotsk Sea was an unusual deep earthquake of magnitude 8.2 points. As seismologists say that most of these events occur at a depth of 10-50 km beneath the earth, but a modern phenomenon occurred at a record depth of 605 kilometers, where the temperature of the tectonic plates is from 650 to 700 degrees, and they are subject to entirely different laws than in the case of " superficial "earthquakes. feature of this earthquake was that it caused no damage or casualties on the Earth's surface, but deep seismic waves from the earthquake were felt at a distance of more than 12 000 km from the epicenter.
Even this morning, Muscovites could feel a slight wiggle in the buildings. Scientists say of the German Research Center of Geophysics in Potsdam, today's earthquake is unique in the sense that it was literally in the bowels of the planet. According to them, these deep earthquakes can occur only in a few places on the planet where the line of contact of the giant tectonic plates. Thus, in the case of today's earthquake hit its Pacific plate under the Eurasian margin (or vice versa - as long as it is not known). In the place where there was a joint board is very high, not only temperature of the plates, but their age - he is at least 80-100 million years. German scientists say that the peculiarity of the earthquake in the Sea of Okhotsk lies in the fact that it happened very quickly .
Until now, geologists believed that the deep tectonic layers would have to move very slowly, but now turned these views: the earthquake itself lasted less than a minute, and vibration wave of it in just 15 minutes was all over Russia from east to west. Before So far, scientists did not have any data that would have foreshadowed today's earthquake, although geologists and were aware of the fact that the Pacific Plateau is moving west at about 8 cm per year. Based on the data analysis, it moved under the so-called Sea of Okhotsk microplate. Now, probably, was the critical point of the movement. In addition, the geologists say that although the nature of these earthquakes is not clear, they are likely to leave behind numerous aftershocks with magnitude range 5.5-6.1 score.
But the traditional offshore earthquake tsunami will not be here - again because of the deep layers of the epicenter and the complete absence of external factors. According to reports, the U.S. Geological Survey, the earthquake was not the depth of 605 and 500 km, and it happened at 9:49 am MSK (17:49 local time), 325 km northwest of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. "Overall, in terms of the geology of the Kuril-Kamchatka arc - it is an active region. Passes here very massive subduction zone.
Technically speaking, today there is a change of the provisions Pacific plates, which are a significant part of Canada and the United States, and Eurasia, which is Russia ", - said the U.S. Geological Survey. Updated on 19:00 MSK: The U.S. Geological Survey reported the first aftershock, which was recorded at 18:56 MSK, magnitude jolt was 6.8, the earthquake-lying at a depth of 623 kilometers per at coordinates 52.2 degrees north latitude and 151.5 east longitude, 350 km distant from the point of morning earthquake.
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