Recent research conducted by geoscientists from the University of Toronto is refining the long-standing model of plate tectonics, which suggests that the oceanic plates are inflexible as they glide over the Earth’s mantle.
Instead, the researchers found the Pacific Plate is scored by large undersea faults pulling it apart. The newly discovered faults, some thousands of meters deep and hundreds of kilometers long, are the result of enormous forces within the plate tugging it westward.
The researchers describe their findings in a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The authors include Erkan Gün, a postdoctoral fellow, and Professor Russell Pysklywec in the Department of Earth Sciences in the Faculty of Arts & Science at U of T, Phil Heron, an assistant professor in the Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences at University of Toronto Scarborough, as well as researchers from the Eurasia Institute of Earth Sciences, Istanbul Technical University.
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