Recent seismic imaging off Vancouver Island has revealed something extraordinary: a tear in the subducting oceanic plate beneath the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
The finding briefly raised the public’s hopes that Cascadia might be “shutting down,” potentially lowering earthquake risk in North America’s Pacific Northwest.
A subduction zone is a boundary where tectonic plates collide, forcing a heavier plate to dive, or subduct, below a lighter one. Recent research suggests that part of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, just off the coast of Vancouver Island, may be slowing down due to a newly identified tear in the subducting plate.
