Puerto Rico Trench

American  

[pwer-tuh ree-koh trench, pwer-toh, pawr-tuh] / ˈpwɛr tə ˈri koʊ ˈtrɛntʃ, ˈpwɛr toʊ, ˈpɔr tə /

noun

1. an elongate, flat oceanic trench in the Atlantic Ocean just north of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and the site of the Milwaukee Deep, the Atlantic’s deepest known place: associated with a fault zone that presents significant risk of earthquakes and tsunamis.

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Etymology

Origin of Puerto Rico Trench

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

To the north of the island, a portion of the North American plate subducts obliquely beneath the Caribbean plate along the 1,090 kilometer-long Puerto Rico Trench.

From Scientific American • May 10, 2020

The third layer is normally unreachable, but scientists making a seismic survey in 1959 got hints that it might be exposed on the sides of the Puerto Rico Trench.

From Time Magazine Archive

To geophysicists, the Puerto Rico Trench is one of the most interesting places on earth.

From Time Magazine Archive

Since trenches are characteristic of the Pacific Ocean, where they abound, some geophysicists consider the Puerto Rico Trench a part of the Pacific that has bulged into the Atlantic between North and South America.

From Time Magazine Archive

From the fractured north wall of the Puerto Rico Trench, its research ship Chain has dredged up the first samples of "third layer" rock ever gathered by man.

From Time Magazine Archive