Ocean storms can cause earthquakes

According to American scientists, strong ocean storms can be the source of earthquakes with magnitude greater than 3.5 magnitude.

According to Geophysical Research Letters , research results from scientists at the University of Florida, the US Geological Survey, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (USA) show that strong storms can is the source of earthquakes with magnitude greater than 3.5.

The ocean can act as a source of earthquake shaking just like the crust of the Earth - (Image: Public Domain Pictures.net)

Storms create strong ocean waves that can interact with the underground masses - shallow areas on the edge of the continental shelf. Such interactions give rise to sources of seismic shaking. For this phenomenon, scientists have proposed the term stormquakes .

Seismologist and geophysicist Wenyuan Fan and colleagues analyzed data from 10-year seismic and oceanographic surveys and found a link between strong storms and seismic activity. violently near the junction between the continental shelves. Specifically, they found evidence of more than 10,000 hurricane earthquakes from 2006 to 2019 on the shelves of New England, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico in the US as well as on the continental shelves of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and British Columbia in Canada. The ocean can act as a source of earthquake shaking just like the Earth's crust. The seismic sources caused by typhoons can last from hours to days, researchers Wenyuan Fan said.

The US team has developed a new approach to detect and locate seismic events and determine whether a seismic event is an earthquake-induced earthquake. According to scientists, major storms such as Hurricane Ike in 2008, Typhoon Bill in 2009 and Typhoon Irene in 2011 were the source of earthquakes. However, not all storms cause earthquakes. For example, Hurricane Sandy did not have such a result, although it was the most devastating of the 2012 Atlantic hurricanes.

Earthquakes due to typhoons are only observed in certain areas of the North American coast. On the coast of Mexico or the east coast of the United States, from New Jersey to Georgia, no typhoon earthquake was detected, despite the fact that during the study there were many strong storms in areas. this.

Mr. Wenyuan Fan explained that this fact shows that typhoon earthquakes are strongly influenced by local oceanographic features and seabed topography .