Mysterious hole spotted in Pacific Ocean floor may cause massive earthquake: Report

After discovering a hole in a 600-mile-long fault line in the Pacific, scientists believe that the strange leak can trigger an earthquake in the region. According to the Daily Mail, the scientist feared that the possible earthquake has the potential to decimate cities along the northwestern areas of the United States. As per the report by the news outlet, the hole in question is spewing hot liquid and sits 50 miles off the shoreline of Oregon. The hole in question sits on the boundary of the dipping fault line known as the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which spans from Northern California to the western regions of Canada. The US State of California is known for its frequent earthquakes. 

According to scientists, the geographical leak has the potential of unleashing a massive earthquake of magnitude 9. The hole was first observed in 2015, however, the University of Washington (UW) suggested recently that the liquid the hole is spewing is called 'fault lubricant’. The researchers stated that this liquid allows the tectonic plates to move smoothly. But without this liquid, stress can be built to create a damaging and devastating earthquake. “It seems equally hallucinatory to find a spring of low-salinity, high-temperature, mineral-rich water flowing from the seafloor 3,280 feet below the surface off the coast of Oregon,” the researchers asserted in a statement on April 10. 

What is the name of the hole?

The researchers from the University of Washington even gave a name to the peculiar hole. The team named the leak, “Pythias Oasis,” after an ancient Greek oracle. The Greek oracle used to give prophesies with the help of mind-altering gases rising from a hot spring. In 2015, it was a robotic diver uncovered the hole and the sonar images captured the bubbles rising from the seafloor. “That's something that I've never seen and, to my knowledge, has not been observed before,” Co-author Evan Solomon, an associate professor from Washington University asserted in the statement. In a recent observation, scientists determined that the liquid coming out of the hole was 16 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the surrounding seawater and was directly coming from the Cascadia megathrust. “Loss of fluid from the offshore megathrust interface through these strike-slip faults is important because it lowers the fluid pressure between the sediment particles and hence increases the friction between the oceanic and continental plates,” the statement reads.