A map of the Juan de Fuca Plate

The Juan de Fuca Plate, named after the explorer, is a tectonic plate arising from the Juan de Fuca Ridge, and subducting under the northerly portion of the western side of the North American Plate at the Cascadia subduction zone. Ioánnis Fokás ( Greek: Ιωάννης Φωκάς better known as Juan de Fuca (born 1536 on the Ionian island of Kefallonia; died there 1602 Plate tectonics (from Greek τέκτων tektōn "builder" or "mason" describes the large scale motions of Earth 's Lithosphere The Juan de Fuca Ridge is a Tectonic spreading center located off the coasts of the state of Washington in the United States and the province In Geology, a subduction zone is an area on Earth where two tectonic plates meet and move towards one another with one sliding underneath the other The North American Plate is a Tectonic plate covering most of North America, Greenland and part of Siberia. The Cascadia Subduction zone is a Subduction zone, a type of convergent plate boundary that stretches from northern Vancouver Island to It is bounded on the south by the Blanco Fracture Zone, on the north by the Nootka Fault, and along the west by the Pacific Plate. The Blanco Fracture Zone or Blanco Fault Zone (BFZ is a Transform fault zone off the coast of the Pacific Northwest of the United States which The Nootka Fault is an active Transform fault located off Nootka Island, near Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The Pacific Plate is an oceanic Tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean. The Juan de Fuca Plate was originally part of the once-vast Farallon Plate, now largely subducted under the North American Plate, and has since fractured into three pieces. The Farallon Plate was an ancient Oceanic plate, which began Subducting under the west coast of the North American Plate &mdash then located in modern The plate name is in some references applied to the entire plate east of the undersea spreading zone, and in other references only to the central piece. In Plate tectonics, a divergent boundary or divergent plate boundary (also known as a constructive boundary or an extensional boundary) is a When so distinguished, the piece to the south is known as the Gorda Plate and the piece to the north is known as the Explorer Plate. The Gorda Plate, located beneath the Pacific Ocean off the coast of northern California, is one of the northern remnants of the Farallon Plate. The Explorer Plate is an oceanic Tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada. The separate pieces are demarcated by the large offsets of the undersea spreading zone manifested in the above mentioned fracture zone and fault. In Geology a fault, or fault line, is a planar rock fracture which shows evidence of relative movement

Cutaway of the Juan de Fuca Plate. USGS image

This subducting plate system has formed the volcanic Cascade Range, the Cascade Volcanoes and the Pacific Ranges, which is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, along the west coast of North America from southern British Columbia to northern California. The United States Geological Survey ( USGS) is a scientific agency of the United States government. Plate tectonics and hotspots Divergent plate boundaries At the The Cascade Volcanoes (also known as the Cascade Volcanic Arc or the Cascade Arc) are a number of Volcanoes in a Volcanic arc in western The Pacific Ranges are the southernmost subdivision of the Coast Mountains portion of the Pacific Cordillera. British Columbia (ˌbrɪtɨʃ kəˈlʌmbiə ( BC) ( (la Colombie-Britannique C California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean.

The last major earthquake at the Cascadia subduction zone was the 1700 Cascadia earthquake, estimated to have a magnitude of 8. A megathrust earthquake occurs at Subduction zones (destructive plate boundaries where one Tectonic plate is forced under (subducts another TalkMoment magnitude scale#Real world examples please.--> The moment magnitude scale 7 to 9. 2. Based on carbon dating of local tsunami deposits, it occurred around 1700. Radiocarbon dating is a Radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring Radioisotope Carbon-14 (14C to determine the age of A tsunami ((tsuːˈnɑːmi is a series of waves created when As reported in National Geographic on December 8, 2003, Japanese tsunami records indicate the quake happened the evening of Tuesday, January 26, 1700. Overview The NGS's historical mission is "to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge while promoting the conservation of the world's cultural historical and natural Events 1609 - Biblioteca Ambrosiana opens its reading room the second public library of Europe. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. A tsunami ((tsuːˈnɑːmi is a series of waves created when Events 1340 - King Edward III of England is declared King of France.

In 2008 small earthquakes were observed within the plate. The unusual quakes were described as "more than 600 quakes over the past 10 days in a basin 150 miles southwest of Newport. Newport is a city in Lincoln County, Oregon, United States. It was incorporated in 1882, though the name dates back to the establishment of a " The quakes were unlike most quakes in that they did not follow the pattern of a large quake, followed by smaller aftershocks; rather, they were simply a continual deluge of small quakes. Furthermore, they did not occur on the techtonic plate boundary, but rather in the middle of the plate. The subterranean quakes were heard on hydrophones, and scientists described the sounds as similar to thunder, and unlike anything heard previously. ^[1]

See also

• Geology of the Pacific Northwest

References

External links

• National Geographic on Japanese records verifying an American earthquake
• Cascadia tectonic history with map