Diamantina Fracture Zone Diamantina Fracture Zone The Diamantina Fracture Zone is an area of the south-eastern Indian Ocean seafloor. It has a range of ridges and trenches. It lies to the south of the mideastern Indian Ocean features of the Wharton Basin and Perth Basin, and to the south west of the Naturaliste Plateau. Being parallel to the Southeast Indian Ridge, Diamantina Fracture Zone is not a real fracture zone in the sense of plate tectonics, but rather an escarpment, separating two oceanic plateaus. In fact its extension to the west is called Diamantina Escarpment. This is the southern border of the Broken
Mariana Trench within the sediment of the trench. Like other oceanic trenches, the Mariana Trench has been proposed as a site for nuclear waste disposal, in the hope that tectonic plate subduction occurring at the site might eventually push the nuclear waste deep into the Earth's mantle, the second layer of the Earth. However, ocean dumping of nuclear waste is prohibited by international law. Furthermore, plate subduction zones are associated with very large megathrust earthquakes, the effects of which are unpredictable for the safety of long-term disposal of nuclear wastes within the hadopelagic ecosystem. Mariana Trench The Mariana Trench or Marianas Trench