The earthquake in Sumatra island signaled the Indian Ocean's bottom fault

According to scientists, strong earthquakes that occurred off the Indonesian island of Sumatra last April could be a sign of the creation of a new stratigraphic belt at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

This comment has been made by scientists in this week's issue of Nature. Accordingly, based on the analysis of the tremors, the largest wave of magnitude 8.7, can signal major changes taking place in the ocean floor, which results in a splitting of the Indian continent. - Australia into two. However, this process does not take place immediately, it may take millions of years.

Earthquake in Sumatra island on April 11

'This is a process that may have started 8-10 million years ago, so you can imagine how long it will take for a truly new belt to be formed , ' said Dr. Matthias Delescluse from Ecole School. Normale Superieure in Paris said. He is the author of one of the three articles in Nature, discussing the April 11 earthquake.

Sumatra Island of Indonesia is located on the border of the Indian - Australian continental plate and Sunda plate. These continental plates are moving overlapping at speeds of about 5-10cm per year. In which stretched Indian - Australian continental plate, including the Indian Ocean bottom, is being crushed by the Sunda plate. Sumatra Island is located on this Sunda Plate.

The collision at the perimeter of these sectors was the cause of many strong earthquakes, typically the 9.1-magnitude strong earthquake that occurred on December 26, 2004, caused a tsunami disaster. Fortunately, the earthquake on April 11, 2012, despite the strong intensity, did not cause the same effect.

This may be explained by the nature of this fracture as a horizontal slip in which the rock moves horizontally on the fault line. It contrasts with the vertical shift of tsunami waves.

The tremors in April also took a deep deviation to the west and were located directly on the Indian continent - Australia in an area where large-scale tectonics were occurring with many faults. Dr. Delescluse said there is evidence that continental plate heads are in the middle.'Australia has moved to India and India and moved to Australia,' Delescluse told the BBC.