Over millions (and MILLLLLIONS) of years Ice Ages have come and gone.
The earth's crust consists of moving, solid plates which float on liquid magma.
When weight is added (an Ice Age,lets say) the plates actually sink further into the magma they float upon. When the weight is removed (the end of an Ice Age, lets say) the plates float back up. This is known as "tectonic rebound".
Even today we still experience earthquakes due to the last Ice Age. So it is fact that changes in ice thickness can be a driving force of seismic events, earthquakes, etc and they in turn can produce tsunamis.
I wonder if anyone has studied the movement of large masses on the Earths surface and seismic effects due to it over a Geological timespan.
Could the amount of mass represented by the lost volume of polar ice in the last ... 100 years, say ...contributed enough strain on the Pacific Rim to trigger a seismic event? And can we expect more in the future due to melting polar ice caps?
2007-02-21
19:54:46
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9 answers
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asked by
Anonymous