Earth scientists say that from all appearances, Taiwan should be rocked periodically by devastating earthquakes. The island sits on the boundary between the Philippine Sea tectonic plate and the Eurasian plate, and geologists describe the area as one of the most seismically active in the world. Here, the colliding plates move so rapidly that they build mountains at a rate of almost 4mm per year. [Researcher Alan] Linde said that in geological terms that is almost like “growing mushrooms”. “It’s surprising that this area of the globe has had no great earthquakes and relatively few large earthquakes” [BBC News], says Linde.
Now, Linde and his colleagues think they have an explanation for Taiwan’s seismic silence in the region’s typhoons–the tropical cyclones that originate in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Their new study suggests that the typhoons passing over the island have been triggering quakes that harmlessly release fault strain over hours and days rather than destructively over seconds or minutes. And these slow earthquakes, they speculate, may be staving off a big one [ScienceNOW Daily News].
