Dead Sea creatures could play a role in the next big earthquake

Close examination of the subduction zone is necessary to accurately predict earthquakes, but their marine location and depth make them difficult to study. In the new study, a team of researchers led by Dr Carolyn Bolton of Te Heringa Waka – Victoria University of Wellington investigated a rock bluff on the Hungarwa Fault, located on the margins of the Hikurangi subduction zone.

Layers of limestone, mudstone and siltstone on a cliff near Tora, about 21 miles (35 km) southeast of Martinborough, provided a convenient indication of what was happening in the offshore subduction zone. Rocks such as those on the bluff were deposited on the sea floor between 35 and 65 million years ago.

Great piece of the puzzle

The researchers found large amounts of calcite in these rocks. Calcite is a common carbon mineral that comes, in this case, from ancient unicellular marine organisms, especially foraminifera, such as plankton. Calcite deposited from small, long-dead marine organisms “could influence how two massive tectonic plates interact mechanically”.

If calcite could melt in high enough amounts, it could weaken the rift, allowing the two tectonic plates to slide easily without causing noticeable surface earthquakes. However, if it does not decay, the fault line can trap and store energy that could eventually be released as a larger earthquake.

“Calcite dissolves faster when it is very pressurized and when temperatures are cooler,” said Dr. Carolyn Bolton, lead author of the study. “It melts more easily at lower temperatures – eg, room temperature. But it becomes more difficult to melt as the temperature increases – eg, deep in the Earth. In the subduction zone, the temperature increases more slowly than on Earth – about 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) per kilometer. So the fault is really sensitive to what the calcite is doing, those shells of ancient dead marine organisms. The amount and behavior of calcite from these organisms is a big part of the puzzle of how big the next earthquake will be.”

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