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subduction zone
noun
geology a long narrow, often arcuate, zone along which subduction takes place
subduction zone
A convergent plate boundary where one plate subducts beneath the other, usually because it is denser. The western coast of South America is roughly coincident with a subduction zone in which a plate consisting of ocean floor is subducting beneath the continental mass of South America.
Example Sentences
New research offers the theory that the San Andreas fault and the Cascadia subduction zone could produce devastating back-to-back earthquake disasters.
They are two of the West Coast’s most destructive generators of huge earthquakes: the San Andreas fault in California and the Cascadia subduction zone offshore of California’s North Coast, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.
The authors suggest that, for thousands of years, large earthquakes on the Cascadia subduction zone were quickly followed by large earthquakes on the northern San Andreas fault.
In 1700, a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake is believed to have measured around a magnitude 9.
“This is, like, most of the time. The only exception in the last 2,500 years was 1906 — that was the only event” in which a major quake on the northern San Andreas fault wasn’t preceded by a huge quake on the Cascadia subduction zone, according to the analysis of available data.
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