Wadati-Benioff zone
A Wadati-Benioff zone is a planar region of earthquake activity that slopes downward from an oceanic trench into the Earth's mantle, marking where one tectonic plate dives beneath another.
These zones can extend hundreds of kilometers deep and trace the path of subducting oceanic crust.
The term honors the Japanese and American seismologists who independently identified the pattern.
Dense undersea lithospheric section
- trenchLong narrow excavation
- plate boundaryWhere Earth's sections meet
- mantleCovering or wrap
- lithosphereCrust plus upper mantle
asthenosphere · continental crust · volcanic arc · accretionary wedge · megathrust · orogeny · metamorphism · melting
Earthquake's underground origin point
- epicenterPoint above seismic origin
- seismic waveEnergy moving through rock
- P-wavesLongitudinal seismic vibrations
- S-wavesSecondary seismic vibrations
magnitude · seismograph · seismometer · rupture · aftershock · foreshock · tremor · seismogram
oceanic plate
Dense undersea lithospheric section
- trenchLong narrow excavation
- plate boundaryWhere Earth's sections meet
- mantleCovering or wrap
lithosphere · asthenosphere · continental crust · volcanic arc · accretionary wedge · megathrust · orogeny · metamorphism · melting · dehydration
hypocenter
Earthquake's underground origin point
- epicenterPoint above seismic origin
- seismic waveEnergy moving through rock
- P-wavesLongitudinal seismic vibrations
S-waves · magnitude · seismograph · seismometer · rupture · aftershock · foreshock · tremor · seismogram
- subductionsubduction zone, trench, megathrust, slab, oceanic crust