Juan de Fuca's Unstable Legacy
Those of us who vital on the Pacific Northwest love that it is a geologically dynamic place. It's not something we are generally aware of, but earthquakes periodically shiver us into remembering just who - or what - is in charge. The volcanoes that dot the landscape awake and lowered the coast, from Last Frontier to Northern California are mayhap more tamed reminders in that they erupt into our consciousness much less frequently.
Fewer populate nevertheless are cognisant of what happens offshore. As we stare out concluded an idyllic Peaceable sunset, there is nothing to intimate that beneath the waves lies a geological battle taking place, one that is responsible for the earthquakes and volcanoes on land, also as yet more earthquakes and volcanoes happening the ocean floor. This is an area of veridical interest to scientists - partly to help meliorate understand our earth systems, and partly to better understand a geological feature that causes the biggest threat to the the population of the area.
Juan de Fuca's Legacy
Juan de Fuca was a Greek explorer working for Kingdom of Spain in the 1500s. Helium wasn't the first to voyage the waves of the Pacific Northwest, but his legacy lived on with name of the Juan First State Fuca Srait between Vancouver Island and mainland Canada. The Strait gave name to the tectonic home base that lies at a lower place the waves that atomic number 2 sailed on.
The Juan de Fuca photographic plate is a section of the Crust. Like the other tectonic plates, it is the hard, rocky crust of the planet that sits atop the hot mantle below. Technically the Juan de Fuca plate is a microplate (i.e. smaller than regular tectonic plates). Given it used to be large, part of the older Farallon plate, but despite its current diminutive size, it still packs a punch when it comes to its power to face off against its neighbours, the hulk Pacific and North American plates.
In this satellite image, we tush see the collection plate clearly. The zig-zig line on the home's western edge marks the Juan Diamond State Fuca Ridgepole - a ridge of volcanoes that periodically pumps out liquefied rock to make sunrise Davy Jone. Connected the Juan Delaware Fuca side of the ridge, the new ball over moves towards the Northwesterly American continent. On the eastern edge of the home base, the old sea bottom sinks beneath the North Ground crustal plate in the process known as subduction. Determine away a sainted animation of this process here.
Ocean Floor Landscape
We're all acquainted with Google maps Orbiter purview, simply have you ever gone exploring over the oceans and zoomed in to see what you ass see? When we zoom over the likes of the Juan de Fuca ridge we can quite an clearly see the plate tectonics at work. We can take care the main ridgepole, with volcanoes pockmarking the ocean floor. The parallel lines are the new ridges of shake that form. The lines on the outside are the oldest, those at the centre of the ridgepole are the youngest.
Volcanoes & Earthquakes
Information technology is these sea volcanoes that are ultimately responsible for the dynamic nature of the Pacific Northwest. These are the volcanoes that create the new rock that sends the Juan First State Fuca home eastwards to collide with the North American plate. The collision is the effort of many of the earthquakes that rattle the region - from the material body up of blackmail on the 'subduction zone' between the Juan de Fuca and Continent plates.
Black Smokers
The Juan de Fuca Ridge, same other similar ridges around the globe, are home to hydrothermal vents - also titled Black Smokers. Like aquatic nigh springs, these grow Eastern Samoa chimneys off the ocean floor and are extreme environments that are of huge interest to scientists. From their deposits of metal rich minerals, to the sulphur-loving organisms that expand in the violent waters, they are fascinating places. The Juan de Fuca's vents are well studied. Over the eld, samples of hydrothermal vent crucial has been brought on land to assist in their study. Finally year we were real fortunate to acquire a donation of vent incarnate from the Axial Seamount(vent) offshore of Oregon, making this unmatchable of the most important donations to our collections.
Header image: subsurface eruption taken on Submarine ROF 2006, NOAA Vents Program, via Creative Commons
Black smoker image: smoker with tube worm community from the Endeavour Ridgepole, University of Washington; NOAA/OAR/OER, via Creative Commons
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Source: https://www.britanniaminemuseum.ca/blogs/news/juan-de-fucas-volcanic-legacy
