Is it really that complicated? Really? Weâve all seen that ambiguous relationship status âItâs Complicatedâ on Facebook, but what does it really mean? Typically, the implication is that âItâs Mysteriousâ or âItâs Sordidâ or âWouldnât you like to know.â I call shenanigans.
Most of the United States is on the North American Plate. The tectonic plate that most of the United States rests on is the North American Plate. This plate also contains Greenland, Canada, Mexico, and parts of Iceland and Russia. Small parts of California and the entire Hawaiian islands rest on other tectonic plates.
Pacific and North American plates are grinding against one another along the Western side of the United States and near Japan. The Filipino and Eurasian plates also meet near Japan. Thus Japan has a lot of seismic activity due to the proximity of four plates. The Australian-Indian plate is pushing up against the Eurasian plate which means the Himalaya mountain range is growing and grinding against the Pacific plate causing seismic activity in New Zealand which is across both plates.