Multi-beam surveys of the Michelson Ridge guyots: Subduction or obduction

This is the first graphic presentation of the Michelson Ridge in its entirety from a total coverage, multi-beam survey. The ridge splits the Izu and Bonin Trenches, is comprised of four guyots, and is anomalous to the strike of all other ridges heretofore discovered in the Pacific Ocean. The ridge is obducting/offscraping onto the Philippine plate instead of subducting.     

The trans-Pacific Chinook Trough megatrend

The Chinook Trough is a trans-Pacific megatrend. By using heretofore unpublished bathymetry and geophysical data, the trend of the Chinook Trough megatrend has been determined from the Juan de Fuca Ridge in the Gulf of Alaska to the Izu-Bonin trench. The feature passes through the Emperor Fracture Zone, intersects the Krusenstern Fracture Zone at the Hess Rise, passes through the Emperor Seamounts, intersects the Mamua Fracture Zone and several unnamed NNW–SSE-trending fractures at the Shatskiy Rise. After an undetermined passage through Nadeshda Basin, it intersects another NNW–SSE-trending fracture zone, Kashima Fracture Zone, at Nelson Guyot, and ends as Uyeda Ridge. Instead of being a trough, the feature is a fracture zone, herein called a megatrend. The feature is colinear to the Mendocino and Clipperton Fracture Zones.