Catalan researchers discovered potential to produce tsunami It is larger than previously thought, due to tectonic plates coming together in the Alboran Sea. this Spanish Mediterranean at high risk As confirmed by such a phenomenon, thanks to the acquisition of new data about this fault system.
A new study led by the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) in Barcelona and the Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) has revealed the exact location of the boundary between the European and African tectonic plates found in the region. from the Alboran Sea. The study also assesses the potential for generating large earthquakes that could trigger devastating tsunamis on the coast.
Recently published article, Nature Communication, It describes for the first time the complex geometry of this system of active faults and describes how they have moved over the past 5 million years.. Finally, the study shows that the system absorbs almost all the deformation of the plate collision that occurs in this region.
“The quality of our data allowed us to examine, for the first time, the deep structure of these faults and thus quantify the deformation they accumulate. The results show that it is one of the most important fault systems in the region and absorbs most of the deformation caused by the collision of the Eurasian and African plates,” explains Laura, a researcher at ICM. Gómez de la Peña – CSIC and main author of the study.
Although the geological structure of the subsoil of the Alboran Sea has been extensively studied since the 1970s, until now the data was not precise enough to understand the tectonics of the region.. However, the modern methodologies used to carry out this study made it possible to characterize in detail the system of active faults, which extends over 300 kilometers and is currently considered the most important in terms of deformation accumulation in the Iberian Peninsula.
“We used the latest data collection techniques aboard the Spanish oceanographic vessel ‘Sarmiento de Gamboa’ to carry out the study, and the processing was specifically designed to be able to observe the structures now described for the first time,” said César R., an ICM-CSIC researcher and ICREA professor who was also involved in the study. ranero
Until now, it was unknown whether the Alboran Sea has large active faults and the exact location of the tectonic boundary where the European and African plates collide.a. This information is key to reassessing the seismic and tsunami risk to which coastal areas of the western Mediterranean are exposed.
In fact, in another study by the same expert group in collaboration with GEOMAR (Germany) and INGV (Italy), the authors explore the tsunami-generating potential of this plate boundary and suggest that: This potential may be greater than previously thought.a. Most previous studies of seismic and tsunami risk did not properly assess these major faults due to a lack of data, so the risk was underestimated.
“These studies are the first assessment of the seismic and tsunami potential of these major faults, of which we were almost completely unaware until now and will need to be evaluated in depth in future studies,” said Gómez de la Peña.
Reference Work: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31895-z
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