Scientists Discover Rare 'Boomerang' Earthquake Under Atlantic Ocean
This is according to research published in Nature Geoscience that explains the rare phenomenon
For the first time ever, scientists have tracked a 'boomerang' earthquake in the ocean bed of our planet.
The type of earthquake gets its name from the boomerang effect that its fault lines observed, going away and then coming back to their origin point at an ultra high speed.
Getty Images
Now published in Nature Geoscience, the observation was recorded by a team of scientists from the University of Southampton and Imperial College London back in 2016. At the time, the team recorded a massive, magnitude 7.1 earthquake along the Romanche fracture zone, a 900 km long fault line under the Atlantic, near the equator.
Tracking the rupture along the fault, scientists were amazed to observe that the rupture initially travelled in one direction. It then turned around midway through the earthquake and became an ultra-fast earthquake by breaking the 'seismic sound barrier'.
Dr Stephen Hicks from the Department of Earth Sciences and Engineering at Imperial, first author of the study, said, "Whilst scientists have found that such a reversing rupture mechanism is possible from theoretical models, our new study provides some of the clearest evidence for this enigmatic mechanism occurring in a real fault.¡±
(Representative Image: Reuters)
He further commented on the uniqueness of the event, saying "even though the fault structure seems simple, the way the earthquake grew was not, and this was completely opposite to how we expected the earthquake to look before we started to analyse the data."
The rare geological phenomenon
Very few of such ¡®boomerang¡¯ earthquakes have been recorded globally. Since such earthquakes are less explored, these are not accounted for in the present day earthquake models and assessments of the possible impact of such earthquakes.
Through the study, the team wanted to monitor the potential impact of such earthquakes on land, i.e. if they ever take place. The team warns that types of reversing or boomerang earthquakes on land could ¡°dramatically affect the amount of ground shaking caused,¡± as mentioned in a report by Science Daily.
Thus understanding such mechanisms of how faults rupture will further help the researchers come up with better models and predictions of future earthquakes. This can in turn also result in a much better early-warning system for future earthquakes.
