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| Possible future scenarios for the subduction zone developing off Spain’s coast. CREDIT: João Duarte/Geology |
A budding subduction zone offshore of Spain heralds the start of a new cycle that will one day pull the Atlantic Ocean seafloor into the bowels of the Earth, a new study suggests.
Understanding how subduction zones start is long-lasting mystery in plate tectonics, said lead study author João Duarte, a research fellow at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Subduction zones are key players in creating supercontinents and opening and closing Earth’s oceans. In a subduction zone, one of Earth’s tectonic plates dives beneath another, sinking into the mantle, the layer under the crust. As oceanic crust disappears, continents may draw closer together and collide, as has happened numerous times in the history of the planet. Subduction zones also spawn the biggest earthquakes on the planet, as in Japan, Chile and Alaska. [The 10 Biggest Earthquakes in History]
