As of: February 1, 2024, 11:55 a.m
By: Julian Mayr
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Huge plates meet in the highest mountains in the world.
New research results provide empirical evidence for the first time of the existence of a giant crack.
Munich – Austrian Alpine valleys in Tyrol have been shaken awake by a series of earthquakes in recent weeks.
The magnitude of some of the earthquakes was relatively high for the region, but experts have given the all-clear.
The earthquakes in Austria were not caused by huge plates colliding with each other.
Earthquakes with destructive power, such as those in Japan at the beginning of the year, are therefore ruled out.
However, the situation is completely different in Tibet and India.
It is well known to science that the highest mountain range in the world, the Himalayas, was formed by the collision of giant plates.
However, recent research results, obtained from seismological and geochemical measurements in southern Tibet, provide new insights into how the tectonic plates of India and Eurasia behave when they meet.
This could provide information about possible earthquakes in the future.
Collision of giant earth plates creates a “geological battlefield”
The journal Science
describes “the towering peaks of the Himalayas
as “a geological battlefield.”
Around 60 million years ago, the Indian plate began to slide under the Eurasian plate.
To this day, the two tectonic plates meet and allow the mountains of the Himalayas to continue to grow.
Two continental plates crash into each other beneath Tibet and the Himalayas.
© pond5/Imago
To date, however, researchers have not yet clarified what dynamics actually arise when the giant plates collide.
Some scientists believe that the Indian plate is sliding northwards more horizontally under Tibet.
Other researchers suspect that the buoyant part of the Indian plate bulges vertically towards the Earth's mantle at the collision edge.
Vertical crack caused by bisecting Indian plate
Scientists have long suspected that there could be a third type of possible behavior of tectonic plates once they collide.
Specifically, this means that part of the Indian plate could slide under the Eurasian plate, while the lower part separates downwards.
In December 2023, researchers from the United States and China presented new results at an American Geophysical Union conference that support exactly this scenario.
Simon Kemperer of Stanford University and his team used earthquake data from hundreds of seismic stations in southern Tibet and combined it with previously collected data to create a 3-D model of plate collision.
Gas samples were also taken from around 200 natural springs.
The research team identified helium isotopes from different layers and was able to recognize a clear pattern.
The study finds evidence of a vertical fracture or crack at the boundary between the drifted and horizontal parts of the plate, writes
Science
.
The African continent is also in danger of tearing apart due to the collision of earth's plates.
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First empirical evidence for the behavior of tectonic plates
According to the specialist portal ScienceAlert, the research team's findings provide the first empirical evidence that some sections of the Indian plate appear to be more or less intact, while parts of the plate around 100 kilometers deep are buckling into the molten part of the Earth.
The evidence is still limited and only a “snapshot,” says geodynamics expert Fabio Capitanio to
Science
.
But the work is going in the right direction to understand how today's landscapes were once formed, says the expert from Monash University in Melbourne.
According to seismologist Anne Meltzer, with an understanding of the dynamics of the plates, the dangers posed by earthquakes can also be better understood.
Study author Klemperer points out that the discovered crack could have an impact on earthquakes in the region.
A deep fracture in the Tibetan plateau, the Cona Sangri Trench, already shows that the processes underground are making themselves felt on the surface.