The massive 2017 Mexican earthquake split a tectonic plate in two, and geologists are shaken
(Worthy News) – The 8.2 magnitude earthquake that brought devastation and 98 deaths to southern Mexico in September 2017 was even more extreme than initially thought — it split the tectonic plate responsible for the quake in half.
According to a new study, published in Nature Geoscience, the approximately 37-mile long Cocos plate split apart in a few seconds and released exorbitant amounts of energy.
“We find that the faulting reactivated a bend-fault fabric and ruptured to a depth well below the predicted brittle–ductile transition for the Cocos slab, including regions where temperature is expected to exceed 1,000 °C,” the study reads. “Our findings suggest that young oceanic lithosphere is brittle to greater depths than previously assumed and that rupture is facilitated by wholesale deviatoric tension in the subducted slab, possibly due to fluid infiltration.” [ Source: Fox News (Read More…) ]