Current Affairs

Issue

Research has indicated that the glacier loss could be causing earthquakes of magnitude 5 or more since the last century.

Background

Alaska is located on a fragile location, where there are impending chances of earthquakes caused due to tectonic activity.

Details

• Melting glaciers and shifting tectonic plates could be causing the rise in earthquakes in the region.

• The ground below the big glacier springs up like a spongy mattress after pressure in form of glacier is removed, which causes tectonic plates to change positions and triggers earthquakes.

• Earthquake after the glacial melt is common in regions such as Canada and Scandinavia. The pattern was however difficult to detect in Alaska.

• This is because Alaska is located at the boundary between North American tectonic plate and the pacific plate, where there are frequent earthquakes.

• The melting of glacial ice was also causing the land in Alaskan region to rise by about 1.5 inches per year.

• Melting ice is not directly linked with earthquakes in the region but it can control the timing and severity.

Earthquakes

An earthquake is a shaking event of the surface of the Earth that results from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that forms seismic waves.

Glaciers

A glacier is a large body of dense ice that is continuously moving due to its own weight. A glacier forms where the availability of snow exceeds its melting over many years.