Listening to Tonga Shake (VIDEO)

Washington University in St. Louis

Caption

Seismologists retrieve an ocean-bottom seismometer that was deployed near the Tonga Trench in the South Pacific from 2009-2010. The data from these and other seismic surveys show that intermediate-depth earthquakes in the slab that descends at the trench are caused by the sudden release of water from minerals in the slab.

Credit

Video by Doug Wiens; video production by Tom Malkowicz

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