Medical Definition of leach. 1  1: to subject to the action of percolating liquid (as water) in order to separate the soluble components. 2  2: to dissolve out by the action of a percolating liquid. 3  intransitive verb.
The Pacific Plate is moving northwestwardly under the North American Plate at a rate of approximately 2.5 inches per year, resulting in many fault lines. Earthquakes are very common and there are an average of 50-100 earthquakes throughout Alaska--daily! In fact, Alaska has more earthquakes per year than all other U.S. states combined! The picture above, taken in Portage, Alaska near Anchorage, is one of the many remnants of the famous 1964 Great Alaskan Earthquake. The magnitude 9.2 quake which shook South-Central Alaska on March 27, 1964 at 5:36 p.m. Alaska Standard Time, lasted for over four minutes and was felt around the world.
The 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake didnât come close to the loss of life from two slightly smaller and more recent quakes: the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean 9.1-magnitude earthquake and tsunami (third-largest earthquake recorded on a seismograph, with over 230,000 people in 14 countries killed) and the March 11, 2011 9.0-magnitude earthquake in Japan (fifth-largest earthquake recorded on a seismograph, with nearly 16,000 deaths).