February 8, 2013 – SANTA CRUZ, ISLS – The deadly 8.0earthquake and tsunami that hit the Solomon Islands days ago, struck along a subduction zone, the same geologic setting responsible for the world’s most powerful earthquakes. In a subduction zone, two of Earth’s tectonic plates meet and one slides beneath the other into the mantle, the deeper layer beneath the crust. The Solomon Islands sits above the collision between the Australia and Pacific plates. In the region of the magnitude-8.0 earthquake, the Australia plates dives beneath the Pacific plate toward the east-northeast at a geologically speedy 3.7 inches (94 millimeters) per year, according to the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS). The earthquake hit at a depth of 17.8 miles (28.7 kilometers) and was the second largest earthquake in the Solomon Islands region in almost 40 years, IRIS said in a statement. Several aftershocks followed; the largest measuring magnitude…