JAMES CAMERON AND THE LUBRICATED MARIANAS TRENCH

Hollywood director James Cameron is bringing some attention to our part of the world with his recent journey to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the first since 1960. 

National Geographic

The Trench is the deepest part of the ocean floor.  How deep?  Seven miles.

If you put Mount Everest in the Trench, there would still be 5,000 feet of water over it.

You can stack the Empire State Building five times in the Trench.

IT'S LUBRICATED

But one if the neatest things about the Trench is that it's lubricated.  As we all know, earthquakes happen when two opposing plates of earth meet up and press on each other.  When one gives way and slips, the earth shakes.  The Trench is part of that dynamic.  Being so deep, why aren't there more earthquakes in our area, and severe ones at that?

Scientists say that the western plate is made up of softer material.  As that soil gets crushed as the two plates press on each other, the softer soil is mashed even more, providing a kind of lubricant between the two plates.  More lubrication; less energy needed to slip; less severe rattling of the earth.  Interesting.  And gråsias a Dios!