Why is seismic activity low in Antarctica?

• Main Authors: Masashi Tani, Ichiro Kawasaki
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Japanese
• Published: National Institute of Polar Research 1984
• Subjects: Geography (General); G1-922; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.15094/00008420; https://doaj.org/article/3242ef31adc54a2db112fdceeede09a6

Oceanic intraplate earthquakes which occurred in the oceanic lithosphere show the following features : 1. The level of oceanic intraplate seismicity appears to increase from high latitudes to low latitudes. 2. The level of oceanic intraplate seismicity appears to increase with the absolute velocity of the movement of the oceanic plate. 3. Both the level of oceanic intraplate seismicity and the maximum seismic moment of intraplate earthquakes appear to decrease with age of the ocean floor, which can be regarded as a rough approximate of the distance from an axis of the mid-oceanic ridge. This means that the ridge push force is dissipated while guided through the oceanic lithosphere. Thus, the potential causes of low seismic activity in Antarctica can be summarized as follows : 1. Antarctica is situated in very high latitudes, 2. The absolute velocity of the movement of the Antarctic plate is small, 3. Because Antarctica is distant from the axes of the mid-oceanic ridge, the continent is almost free from the ridge push force.