Aleutian Trench

The Aleutian Trench is a deep ocean trench in the North Pacific where the Pacific Plate descends beneath the North American Plate.

Aleutian Subduction Zone: A convergent plate boundary where the Pacific Plate descends beneath the North American Plate along the Aleutian arc. The trench is the seafloor expression of this plate boundary.
1964 Alaska earthquake: A magnitude 9.2 megathrust earthquake that struck southern Alaska on March 27, 1964. This great rupture occurred along the same subduction system that forms the trench.
Kuril–Kamchatka Trench: A deep ocean trench where the Pacific Plate subducts beneath the Okhotsk microplate near Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands. It continues the subduction system westward from the Aleutian region.
Megathrust earthquake: A large earthquake produced by sudden slip on a shallow fault where one tectonic plate subducts beneath another. The plate interface beside the trench can generate the region's most powerful earthquakes.
Pacific Plate: A large tectonic plate underlying much of the Pacific Ocean basin. Its descent beneath North America produces the trench.
2014 Rat Islands earthquake: A magnitude 7.9 earthquake that struck the Rat Islands region of Alaska's Aleutian arc in 2014. Its location illustrates active deformation along the trench's western arc.
Peru–Chile Trench: A deep trench off western South America where the Nazca Plate descends beneath the South American Plate. It provides a contrasting example of oceanic subduction along a continental margin.
Tsunami: A series of long ocean waves generated by sudden displacement of seawater, often during undersea earthquakes. Vertical motion during Aleutian subduction earthquakes can displace seawater and produce tsunamis.
North American Plate: A tectonic plate that includes North America and adjoining oceanic crust. It overrides the Pacific Plate at the trench.
Aleutian Megathrust: The fault interface where the Pacific Plate slides beneath the North American Plate along the Aleutian subduction zone. Large earthquakes rupture this interface beneath and landward of the trench.

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