“Everyone was sort of stumped, because according to conventional theory, those earthquakes should occur at high tides,” explained Christopher Scholz, a seismologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
In a study published today in Nature Communications, he and his colleagues have uncovered the mechanism for this seeming paradox, and it comes down to the magma below the mid-ocean ridges.
“It’s the magma chamber breathing, expanding and contracting due to the tides, that’s making the faults move,” said Scholz, who co-led the study along with Lamont-Doherty graduate student Yen Joe Tan“It’s the magma chamber breathing, expanding and contracting due to the tides, that’s making the faults move,” said Scholz, who co-led the study along with Lamont-Doherty graduate student Yen Joe Tan.
Read more about Solved: How Tides Can Trigger Earthquakes on State of the Planet, a blog from The Earth Institute.
