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Earth science

The slippery slope

Nature volume 417, pages 497–498 (2002)Cite this article

Seismic readings suggest that a zone of weak, slippery rocks lies beneath the Pacific northwest coast of the United States. These frail layers might be limiting the violence of earthquakes.

Most of our planet's largest earthquakes and active volcanoes are associated with subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives under another. As the downgoing plate experiences higher pressures and temperatures, water trapped in its crust and upper mantle is gradually forced out and into the mantle of the overlying plate. At depths of about 100 km, the addition of water lowers the melting temperature of the mantle rocks and initiates partial melting to magma, which rises and erupts in the so-called arc volcanoes that form the 'Ring of Fire' along the Pacific Rim.

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Figure 1: Cross-section through the Cascadia subduction zone on the northwest coast of the United States.

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  1. Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721-0077, Arizona, USA

    George Zandt

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  1. George Zandt
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Correspondence to George Zandt.

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Zandt, G. The slippery slope. Nature 417, 497–498 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/417497a

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