The political fraternities are always up with their arms to fragment the boundaries. But, it is not the same this time. Rather it the geological ones that seem to need a change this time! Once thought to be on the North American plate, the Kamchatka Peninsula turns out to lie on a small plate, previously unknown.
That Kamchatka sits on the Okhotsk plate was concluded after the elevations of shorelines dating back to the Ice Age are measuring. Joanne Bourgeois of the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues made this new finding.
The plate is calculated to be moving eastward by about 20 millimetres a year towards the Bering block! Bering block is a minor plate, which is slowly turning under the Bering Sea. If Kamchatka was on the North American plate, such movement would not be possible.
Via: New Scientist