Weird 'boomerang' earthquake recorded for the first time
By Stephanie Pappas - Live Science Contributor 2 hours ago
a view of the Romanche ridge in the Mid-Atlantic
The Romanche Spreading Zone in the Atlantic Ocean was the site of a rare boomerang earthquake in 2016.
(Image: © Hicks et al)
A massive earthquake in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in 2016 ricocheted east then west like a geologic boomerang.
Boomerang quakes have only been rarely anecdotally reported, and never before recorded scientifically. This strangely complex earthquake happened on a relatively simple, straight-line fault called an ocean transform fault. That suggests such weird, ricocheting quakes could happen on other straight-line faults, such as the San Andreas Fault that snakes along California's coast.
Complicated earthquakes aren't unusual, said study co-author Stephen Hicks, an earthquake seismologist and research associate at Imperial College London. But that's not surprising because most faults are complicated: They might be very close to other faults, which all rupture in weird ways when one snaps under pressure. Ocean transform faults, by contrast, should be simple, Hicks said.
"We're seeing this level of complexity on just a single structure," Hicks told Live Science.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/boomerang-earthquake.html