"According to a new study, published in Nature Geoscience, the approximately 37-mile long Cocos plate split apart in a few seconds and released exorbitant amounts of energy."
"The 8.2 magnitude earthquake that brought devastation and 98 deaths to southern Mexico in September 2017 was even more extreme than initially thought — it split the tectonic plate responsible for the quake in half."
"This subducting plate is still very young and warm, geologically speaking," Melgar added in the statement. "It really shouldn't be breaking."