Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll learn when you read this story:<\/p>\n
The floor of the ocean off the coast of the Pacific Northwest has sprung a leak.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
The spring, known as Pythia\u2019s Oasis, is likely venting water from beneath local tectonic plates through a fault called the Cascadia Subduction Zone.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
This liquid is likely acting as a lubricant between the two plates colliding at the fault, and losing too much of it could increase the likelihood of a damaging earthquake.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The ocean<\/a> has a leak.<\/p>\n Technically, it\u2019s a spring, because water is flowing in and not out. But in the ways that matter, it definitely is a leak. It\u2019s known as Pythia\u2019s Oasis, and it\u2019s a spring of almost-fresh water most welling up from under the ocean floor<\/a> through a fault called the Cascadia Subduction Zone.<\/p>\n It was accidentally discovered by oceanographer Brendan Philip\u2014who spotted the bubbles that the spring carried to the surface\u2014and a study<\/a> on the vent was released by Philip and the rest of the research team from the University of Washington.<\/p>\n \u201cThey explored in that direction and what they saw was not just methane bubbles, but water coming out of the seafloor like a firehose. That\u2019s something that I\u2019ve never seen, and to my knowledge has not been observed before,\u201d Evan Solomon, a seafloor geologist and one of the authors on the paper, said in a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n Often times, bubbles coming up from the bottom of the ocean herald hydrothermal vents<\/a>, which can be hot beds of exciting biological activity. But a spring is a different story, and might be a little bit more worrying. <\/p>\n Because, for our sake, the water in that reserve most likely really needs to stay there. If too much seeps out of the fault, parts of the U.S. may be at higher risk of a literal earth-shaking issue.<\/p>\n The Cascadian Subduction Zone is a large strike-slip fault off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. That\u2019s where two of the tectonic plates that make up the Earth\u2019s crust meet up and slide alongside each other. And the reserve of water bubbling up from Pythia\u2019s Oasis acts as lubrication between these two plates.<\/p>\n \u201cThe megathrust fault zone is like an air hockey table<\/a>,\u201d Solomon said in a news release<\/a>. \u201cIf the fluid pressure is high, it\u2019s like the air is turned on, meaning there\u2019s less friction and the two plates can slip. If the fluid pressure is lower, the two plates will lock \u2013 that\u2019s when stress can build up.\u201d<\/p>\n And therein lies the issue. If stress starts to build up, it eventually has to go somewhere. When the stress is too much and the system has to jerk into a new position, the jerk triggers an earthquake<\/a>. Most likely, a big one. Scientists believe a release of stress in the Cascadia Subduction Zone could trigger a magnitude-9 earthquake that would affect many of those living in the Northwestern U.S.<\/p>\n