In week two, we learned about the Earth's tectonic plates. The words tectonic refers to large-scale geological processes that deform Earth's lithosphere (Keller). With the plates being broken down all over earth taking part of a continent and section of water, I located Peru to see what plate it was placed on.
Being part of the ring of fire, Peru is located on top of the South America plate boundary and south of that is the plate Nazca. Because the Nazca plate moves east towards the South American plate, that makes it convergent boundary. According to Keller, a convergent boundary is when two plates are moving towards one another.
Since Peru is near the Nazca plate and on the South America plate, it is prone to most earthquakes that occur around the world. Due to subduction, we see more shallow earthquakes closer to the subduction zone and deeper ones inland (IRIS).
Peru also is more likely to experience tsunami's because of the activity of the Peru-Chile trench. In 2001, Peru had an earthquake of 8.3 which created a tsunami off the Peruvian coast where damage occurred. (USC Tsunami Research Group).
References:
https://www.iris.edu/hq/inclass/animation/peruchile_subduction_zone_earthquakes__tectonics
http://www.usc.edu/dept/tsunamis/peru/
Natural Hazards, Keller, 4th Edition.
Fantastic map showing the area. It will help very much when we discuss quakes next week..
ReplyDeleteHey, I'm covering Chile so I figured it'd be good to comment on a border country. Both are strikingly similar. It was interesting to read the same observations on both the amount of earthquakes and volcanoes. The map is also something that helped clear up what you were writing about. Great post.
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