Stop 2: Aleutian Trench

After a long flight (and a delicious continental breakfast!) I arrive on a private plane right next to the Aleutian Trench (14 letters). The Aleutian Trench is a really good example of a subduction zone. A subduction zone it when one plate gets pushed under another. In this case, the Pacific Plate is getting pushed under the North American plate. The spot on the Aleutian trench that I'm visiting is at about 50 degrees North and 170 degrees West. As the Pacific plate moves under the North American plate, it heats up as it gets closer to the molten core of the Earth. The melted plate turns into magma which rises up to the surface of the ocean and spews out before cooling to normal temperature, creating a volcanic island. This process created the Aleutian Islands which are an archipelago of islands over 1500 miles long. In terms of crosswords, Attu, the westernmost Aleutian island, is very well known to crossword people. There are often earthquakes that trigger tsunamis at the Aleutian Islands as well because of the shifting plates. One famous Aleutian Islands earthquake happened on March 9, 1957. It had an aftershock of 1200 kilometers and measured about 8.1 on the Richter scale. There was a recent big earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale in 2007. Below is a picture of erupting volcanoes onthe Aleutian Islands [www.ieatgravel.com].