Pacific Northwest) that have subducting seamounts and a lot of sediment, but because the subducting crust there typically has less water than Hikurangi, they may be less likely to have the same kind of shallow slow slip activity.' 'There could be other places like Cascadia (in the U.S. 'That older one seems to be very much linked to an uplifted ridge that's really in the bullseye of where recent slow slip activity has been,' Bangs said. In another surprise, the scientists spotted the fading trail of a much larger seamount that had long since sunk beneath New Zealand's North Island.Īccording to Bangs, the discovery suggests that sinking seamounts drag down enough water-rich sediment to create conditions in the crust suitable for slow slip earthquakes, at least in New Zealand. Previous models suggested sediments are pushed down the subduction zone ahead of the seamount, but the scan revealed something different: a massive sediment trail in Pāpaku's wake. Images from the scan show the seamount colliding with the subduction zone and the pattern of stresses, fluids and sediments surrounding it. Known as the Pāpaku Seamount, the long extinct volcano lies some three miles under the seafloor inside the Hikurangi subduction zone off the coast of New Zealand. In 2018, Bangs led an ocean seismic survey that resulted in the first ever 3D scan of a large subducting seamount. The research was led by Nathan Bangs, a senior research scientist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics. The findings, published June 7, 2023, in the journal Nature Geoscience, can be used to adjust earthquake models and help scientists unravel the mechanisms that drive earthquakes.

The last of us joel 3d model