Subduction zones, where a slab of oceanic plate is pushed beneath another tectonic plate down into the mantle, cause the world’s largest and most destructive earthquakes. Reconstructing the geometry and stress conditions of the subducted slabs at subduction zones is crucial to understanding and preparing for major earthquakes. However, the tremendous depths of these slabs make this challenging—seismologists rely mainly on the rare windows into these deeply buried slabs provided by the infrequent but strong earthquakes, termed intraslab earthquakes, that occur within them.
Click here for original story, Contorted oceanic plate caused complex quake off New Zealand’s East Cape
Source: Phys.org