A year after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, which killed at least 20,000 dead or missing, the wounds are still vivid in Japan: tsunami-affected areas, where debris are crowded; around the territory drained Central Fukushima; inhabitants refugees away from home Back on a double disaster, seismic and nuclear. March 11, 2011 […]
The particularity of Japan The archipelago is located at the junction of three tectonic plates , the Eurasian, Philippine and Pacific, with an additional small plates, like that of Okhotsk. The Pacific plate is sinking beneath the Eurasian plate along the Japan Trench at a rate of 8.5 cm / year. A small region […]
During the Sumatra earthquake in December 2004, followed by a deadly tsunami, experts were surprised by the magnitude of the sliding plates on each other: more than 7.5 minutes. In the same region in October 2010, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake occurred off the coast of Sumatra in the shallowest part of the subduction zone, where […]
Convergence zones are another type of boundary: this is the subduction zone where tectonic plate topped with an oceanic crust sinks beneath a continent. The Pacific Rim is surrounded by subduction zone at the origin of volcanoes that form the famous Pacific Ring of Fire. Finally, in some places, two tectonic plates slide abutting one […]
In three minutes, estimated duration of the earthquake, the crust broke about 500 km long and 150 km wide. The many GPS stations have constituted a map of ground motions: the east coast of the island slipped four meters while the West has moved only a few tens of centimeters The earthquake was followed by […]
A sequence found in all regions except sub-Saharan Africa The comparison between human DNA and that of Neanderthal man, recently deciphered (1) , showed that there had been a cross between these two species and that Homo Sapiens have fond memories in their genome since it would consist of 1 to 4% of Neanderthal DNA […]