The strongest earthquake in history hit Antarctica

From the first day of the war Focus never stopped working. Our team considers it its duty to inform the reader about what is happening, to collect and analyze facts, to resist enemy propaganda. Focus needs your support today, to continue your mission. Thank you for being with us.

Support
–

A new study shows that the series of earthquakes in the region was the strongest ever recorded in Antarctica. But the underwater volcano was not the main cause of these shocks. Most of the seismic activity was most likely caused by the penetration of hot magma into the Earth’s crust, reports ScienceAlert.

Scientists from the German Research Center for Geosciences have published a new study that shows that from August to November 2020, the strongest known earthquake in the region was recorded near Antarctica.

According to scientists, a series of earthquakes occurred near the underwater dormant volcano Kosatka (it got its name back in 1987 due to the fact that many killer whales live here). The 900 m high volcano is located in the Bransfield Strait, which separates the South Shetland Islands and the northwestern tip of Antarctica. In this area, too, the movement of tectonic plates creates a network of faults.

“The very first tremors were recorded by seismic stations on King George Island, one of the South Shetland Islands. But in order to understand exactly what happened there, we had to use data from other nearby stations, as well as satellite data,” says Simona Cheska from the German Research Center for Geosciences.

Thanks to the collected data, scientists were able to determine the number of tremors, most of which were very weak, as well as the strength of the two largest earthquakes from August to November 2020. And most importantly, scientists managed to find out the cause of these earthquakes.

The most powerful earthquakes in this region were tremors of magnitude 5.9 and magnitude 6, which occurred in October November, respectively. After November, seismic activity near Antarctica began to wane.

–

The study showed that most likely, a series of earthquakes caused a breakthrough of hot magma into the Earth’s crust. Although perhaps researchers do not reject this option, the eruption of an underwater volcano was the cause of a small number of earthquakes. But so far, scientists have not found direct evidence that the eruption was.

“We need to conduct a study under water in this region, near the killer whale volcano, and perhaps we will find evidence of our theory,” says Cheska.

Focus already wrote about giant earthquake, which occurred almost 4 thousand years ago on the Pacific coast of Chile. Until recently, scientists did not know about it, but as a result of the study, they found out that this earthquake drastically affected the life of the local population.

We remind you that scientists have registered an earthquake that occurred at a depth of almost 800 km. Previously, it was thought that such an event was impossible.

–