The Nisqually earthquake occurred when the Juan de Fuca plate subducted under the North American plate, this quickly released the built up strain. Res. 4. 0 rating rating ratings Distribution of earthquakes deeper than 16 miles in the Pacific Northwest. The Juan de Fuca Ridge is a mid-ocean spreading center and divergent plate boundary located off the coast of the Pacific Northwest region of North America.The ridge separates the Pacific Plate to the west and the Juan de Fuca Plate to the east. After a two-season hiatus the Juan de Fuca Plate returned for the 2017 USL PDL season. The Juan de Fuca plate is located on the west coast of North America, between the Pacific plate (to the west) and the North American plate (to the east). Analysis of the magnetic anomalies of the Juan de Fuca plate system allows instantaneous poles of rotation relative to the Pacific plate to be calculated from 7 Ma to the present. Figure 10.16 A map showing 15 of the Earth’s tectonic plates and the approximate rates and directions of plate motions. Evolution and Hydration of the Juan de Fuca Crust and Uppermost Mantle: A Plate-Scale Seismic Investigation from Ridge to Trench Evolution of oceanic lithosphere from formation at the ridge crest to subduction at the trench involves incorporation of water into the physical and chemical structure of the crust and shallow mantle. The Juan de Fuca Microplate System Introduction The Juan de Fuca microplate system of the Pacific Northwest in the United States (U.S.) and southern British Columbia is an interesting area of study for the field of tectonic geology. The two plates became a destructive plate boundary – when a continental plate meets an oceanic plate. It is located underneath the northerly portion of the North American plate between the Medicino Fault Zone and the Pacific Plate. It also serves as the regional International Boundary between the U.S. and Canada. In addition to phase velocities and the attenuation coefficient, at each period we solve simultaneously for station amplitude corrections and six two-plane-wave parameters for each source. Part of the Century of Earthquakes poster. The Juan de Fuca is a small tectonic plate that sits several hundred miles off the Pacific Northwest coast. Strait of Juan de Fuca The Strait of Juan de Fuca, approximately 102 miles in length and 10 to 18 miles wide, is the access route to the Pacific Ocean from Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia. The Juan de Fuca is one of the few remaining fragments of the once mighty Farallon plate, which North America began languidly consuming some 180 million years ago as the supercontinent Pangea broke apart. The small Juan De Fuca Plate, moving east-northeast at 4 cm (~1.6 inches) per year, was once part of a much larger oceanic plate called the Farallon Plate. The slab dips shallower compared with its counterparts to north and south, which have a dip of 65 (Harris, et al., 1991; Rasmussen and Humphreys, 1988). Juan de Fuca made many attempts to be reimbursed by the English government for this loss but was not successful. Inland, the Cascade volcanoes mark the line where, far below, the Juan de Fuca plate is heating up and melting everything above it. The Juan de Fuca plate is an oceanic plate and the North American plate is a continental plate. The maximum age of the seafloor in the Juan de Fuca plate is about 10 Ma, but within the area encompassed by the deep-water sites, the average age is a little less than 4 Ma. For example the Juan de Fuca Plate is actually three separate plates (Gorda, Juan de Fuca, and Explorer) that all move in the same general direction but at slightly different rates. The Juan de Fuca plate is long, stretching about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) along the Pacific Northwest coast, from Vancouver Island, Canada, to Cape Mendocino, California. EARTHQUAKES, FAULTS, AND PLATES As part of the investigation, H.F. Reid proposed the elastic rebound theory of earthquakes, where materials at distance on opposite sides of the fault move smoothly relative to each other, but friction on the fault “locks” each side and prevents it from slipping. This zone produces massive earthquakes, called "megathrust earthquakes," which may register as large as magnitude 9.0 earthquakes. It lies on the Juan de Fuca Plate. The oceanic plate (Juan de Fuca) descended underneath the continental plate (North American plate) as it … J. Geophys. There is a tetonic plate named for Juan de Fuca. The Juan de Fuca plate is a small oceanic plate between the Pacific and North America plates. "A 2‐D tomographic model of the Juan de Fuca plate from accretion at axial seamount to subduction at the Cascadia margin from an active source ocean bottom seismometer survey. There is good evidence that the Juan de Fuca and North America plates are … The map provided by the U.S. Geological Survey highlights 11 recent earthquakes, all occurring on the seabed of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate, approximately 6 miles below the surface. The Farallon plate used to include what is now the Cocos Plate off Mexico and Central America and the Juan de Fuca Plate in our region from N. Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino California and a large tract of seafloor real estate in between. The ocean plate is not always moving though. The Nisqually earthquake hit the southern end of Puget Sound causing damage to the ports of Seattle and Tacoma. In the southernmost region, referred to as the Gorda deformation zone, the maximum compressive stress a, constrained by earthquake focal mechanisms is N-S. Off Oregon, and possibly off Washington, NW trending left-lateral faults cutting the Juan de Fuca plate indicate a a, in a NE-SW to E-W direction. The Juan de Fuca Plate between its northern and southern ends has few earthquakes, indicating that internal deformation is less important there. The Juan de Fuca plate moves toward, and eventually is shoved beneath, the continent (North American plate). Anisotropy of the Juan de Fuca plate interior is strongest (~2.4%) in the low‐velocity zone between ~40‐ to 90‐km depth, with ENE direction driven by relative shear between plate motion and mantle return flow from the Cascadia subduction zone. This was caused by mineral changes as the plate moved farther into the mantle. The Juan de Fuca Plate is a tectonic plate extending from the Juan de Fuca Ridge in the Pacific Ocean, west of the US and Canada. 8 (2016): 5859-5879. Strait Of Juan De Fuca, Washington has had: (M1.5 or greater) 0 earthquakes in the past 24 hours 8 earthquakes in the past 365 days Final moments of a plate tectonic. Horning, G., Juan Pablo Canales, Suzanne M. Carbotte, Shuoshuo Han, Hélène Carton, M. R. Nedimović, and P. E. Keken. The Juan de Fuca plate is bounded on the south by the Blanco Fracture Zone (running northeast off the coast of Oregon, USA), on the north by the Nootka Fault (running southwest off Nootka Island, near Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada), and along the west by the Pacific Plate (which covers most of the Pacific Ocean and is the largest of Earth's tectonic plates). The Juan de Fuca plate formed during the Oligocene as a result of the Farallon plate breaking into a series of smaller plates (Govers & Meijer, 2001). It runs generally northward, with a length of approximately 500 kilometers (300 miles). 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