A "missing" tectonic plate called Resurrection is hidden under the Pacific Ocean

Scientists reconstruct the lost long ago Tectonic plate That may have given rise to an arc of volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean 60 million years ago.

The painting, called the Resurrection, has always been so controversial among geophysicists that some believe it did not exist. But the new reconstruction places the edge of the plate along an old known line Volcanoes, Indicating that it was once part of the crust (the upper layer of the Earth) in what is today northern Canada.

“Volcanoes form at plate boundaries, and the more plate you have, the more volcanoes you have,” Johnny Wu, University of Houston geologist, He said in a statement. Volcanoes are also affecting Climate change. So, when you’re trying to model the Earth and understand how the climate has changed … you really want to know how many volcanoes there are Land“.

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A 3D block diagram across North America showing a tomography image of the mantle reveals the Slab Unfolding method used to flatten the Farallon tectonic plate. By doing so, Fauston and Wu were able to locate the lost Resurrection panel. (Image credit: University of Houston)

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This image shows plate tectonic reconstructions in western North America 60 million years ago, as it shows the subduction of three major tectonic plates, the Cola, Farallon, and the Resurrection. (Image credit: University of Houston)

Wu and co-author, Spencer Fauston, a doctoral candidate in geology at the University of Houston, used a computer model of the Earth’s crust to “detect” the movement of tectonic plates since early Cenozoic, The geological age that began 66 million years ago. Geophysicists already knew that there were two plates in the Pacific Ocean at the time, the Kola Plate and the Farallon Plate.

Because a lot of Magma To the east of the former site of these paintings in what is today Alaska and Washington, some geophysicists have argued that there is a missing piece in the puzzle – a theoretical board they called the Resurrection. This magma had left behind volcanic activity at the edge of the plate.

All of these plates long ago sank beneath the Earth’s crust in a process called subduction. Wu and Fauston used computer reconstruction to undo this subduction, approx Lift the plates back to the surface and rewrap their movement. When they did, they found that the resurrection did indeed fit into the picture. They reported their findings October 19 in the journal GSA Bulletin.

“When” raised “back to Earth’s surface and rebuilt, the boundaries of this ancient tectonic plate of resurrection coincide perfectly with the ancient volcanic belts of Washington state and Alaska, providing a much desirable link between the ancient Pacific and North America, Wu said.

Originally published in Live Science.