Modern Tectonics?!
By bobbyburns
· 2,162 views
We learn about tectonic plate motion in Earth Science, but I never thought I'd hear about it in the present day. Apparently, it happens faster than I thought, and is extremely visible.
A small patch of land off the coast of Japan sprouted from the sea last November, due to volcanic and seismic activity in the "Ring of Fire" region known to scientists.
The island continued to grow, faster than expected, and finally collided with a much larger island. The outcome? One big island! The region, now called Niijima, sits hundreds of feet above sea level, to the astonishment of researchers. The seismic activity in this region has been coined the "Ring of Fire", and is the epicenter of about %90 of Earth's earthquakes.
It is possible that the continuous and slow eruptions of the smaller island's volcano simply layered rock onto the surface, making it higher as time went on. Another theory states that the seismic motion and activity beneath the crust of the planet has pushed the whole region up, exposing the once unheard of land. Either way, Earth's land area just got a tiny bit bigger.
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