The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 5.0 Earthquake at a depth of 10 km beneath the Greenland Sea, between Greenland and Svarlbad, at about 2.25 am GMT on Tuesday 22 December 2020. This was a large Earthquake for the region, but given the remote location at which it occured, is highly unlikely to have been felt by anyone.
The Greenland Sea lies directly upon the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a chain of (mostly) submerged volcanoes running the length of the Atlantic Ocean along which the ocean is splitting apart, with new material forming at the fringes of the North American and European Plates beneath the sea (or, in Iceland, above it). The Atlantic is spreading at an average rate of 25 mm per year, with new seafloor being produced along the rift volcanically, i.e. by basaltic magma erupting from below. The ridge itself takes the form of a chain of volcanic mountains running the length of the ocean, fed by the upwelling of magma beneath the diverging plates. In places this produces volcanic activity above the waves, in the Azores, on Iceland and on Jan Mayen Island. All of this results in considerable Earth-movement beneath the mid-Atlantic, where Earthquakes are a frequent event.
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