Madeline SchwartzPuerto Rico Ditch
May 2nd 2008 12:52
When I was a little girl, I was so amazed of how deep our sea floor is, especially by the North West of the island. Look at the bathymetric image for today is a point of view of the North American and Caribbean plate boundary focused on the northeast part of the Caribbean Plate.
The image below is from the Caribbean earthquake and tsunami hazards studies page of the USGS’s Woods Hole Science Center.
The Puerto Rico Trench reaches water depths greater than 8 km making it the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean (the Marianas Trench gets to 11 km in case you’re wondering). The North American Plate is sub ducting underneath Caribbean Plate. In the view above, the main sub duction zone where the plate motions are more orthogonal are further south. This view is where the arc starts to curve around to the west.
The image below is from the Caribbean earthquake and tsunami hazards studies page of the USGS’s Woods Hole Science Center.
The Puerto Rico Trench reaches water depths greater than 8 km making it the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean (the Marianas Trench gets to 11 km in case you’re wondering). The North American Plate is sub ducting underneath Caribbean Plate. In the view above, the main sub duction zone where the plate motions are more orthogonal are further south. This view is where the arc starts to curve around to the west.
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