Abstractions

摘要

Across the subduction zones of Japan, where one tectonic plate dives beneath another, the propagation of seismic waves varies from place to place. Earth scientist Ikuo Katayama of Hiroshima University in Japan sought to find out why. By using a high-pressure device to squeeze serpentine, a hydrous mineral, to determine how its crystal orientation would develop, he and his colleagues simulated what might happen in the Japanese subduction zones (see page 1114). Katayama tells Nature more.