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“Of course.”
Adam shifted next to Phoebe and tapped at a keyboard before the monitor in front of her. He brought up a regional map.
“This chart shows all the major trenches throughout the area,” Adam explained. “A veritable maze, as you can see. It’s why Southeast Asia is one of the most tectonically active areas of the planet. The Tonga Trench alone is the source of two-thirds of the world’s deep-earth quakes. Such volatility is due to the collision of four major tectonic plates. The Pacific, Indo-Australian, Philippine, and Eurasian plates.”
She nodded, aware of this through her own interest in deep-sea life.
Adam tapped a finger near the middle of the map. “Those big four meet at one point near the center of the Indonesian islands.”
Haru waved an arm at his nephew. “Adam, please show Dr. Reed the latest seismology map. That will make matters clearer.”
“I’m bringing it up now,” Adam said as he tapped a few more keys. “There.”
A new map of the same region appeared, only now it was dotted by crimson stars of various sizes.
“The stars mark all the seaquakes recorded over the pastfourdays. I restricted the mapping to only those tremorsgreaterthan 2.0 on the Richter scale. The larger the star, the stronger the quake.” He had used a stylus to circle a celestial cluster in the middle of the Tonga-Kermadec Trench. “As you can see, the activity in this section of the chasm is extraordinarily volatile.”
“And has been for the past two weeks,” Haru added.
“But swarming of quakes is not uncommon in this region,” Byrd clarified, likely to reassure her.
“True,” Adam said, “but these tremors have been growing steadily. Both in numbers and strength. My uncle has been aboard theTitan Xfor the past three months, monitoring seismic activity during the finalization of the complex. He was the first one to note the disturbing clustering that started two weeks ago.”
Haru spoke up. “I’ve kept a log of each tremor. Dates, durations, strengths, and locations.”
Adam nodded. “I used my uncle’s data to build a force vector map. It seems to show that the quaking here in the Tonga Trench is spreading outward along the regional maze of trenches and fault lines, amplifying in strength as it sweeps westward. Let me show you.” He tapped again at the keyboard. “Here are the main vector lines that my program compiled.”
The same map was now overlaid by three large arrows that spanned Indonesia and the surrounding countries, aiming for the coastline of Asia.
“What does this mean?” Phoebe asked.
Haru answered, “From the models that my nephew projected, if the current escalation of quakes continues, the entire Sunda Arc of volcanos could destabilize, possibly erupt. Maybe across all of Southeast Asia.”
“How many volcanos are you talking about?”
Adam drew Phoebe’s attention back to his screen. “There are more than seven hundred in Southeast Asia, both active and potentially active. I’ve marked the ones that are the most threatened if the current pace of escalation in volatility continues.”
He pulled up another map with small triangles dotting the region.
Phoebe choked down a gasp. “There’s still close to a hundred.”
“One hundred and twenty-two,” Adam corrected. “Some of those triangles mark clusters of two or three volcanic peaks.”
Phoebe glanced to the map that showed the force vector arrows. They all ran straight through the volcanic areas. “What’s causing this to happen?”
Byrd shifted forward. “That’s what we’re trying to determine. It might simply be a normal pattern of stress relief between Tonga’s tectonic plates. Everything could quiet once enough pressure is released.”
Haru cast the billionaire a doubtful look. Clearly this was an ongoing point of contention between the two men.
Byrd ignored him and continued, “I deployed a pair of DriX USVs along the Tonga Trench. They’re unmanned surface vehicles that can perform high-quality sonar surveys. We can operate them remotely from this station.”
“I’m familiar with the vehicles from my own research,” Phoebe said.
“Of course.” Byrd nodded. “Late this evening, we reached the problematic section of the trench. Then a short time ago, we came upon an unusual discovery, one that we’d like your input on.”
“My input? Why?”
“Can you show her, Dr. Kaneko?”
