Abstract
Convergence rates between the Juan de Fuca and North America plates are calculated by means of their relative, present‐day pole of rotation. Subduction rates, as measured normal to the strike of the Washington‐Oregon trench, are predicted to range from about 40 mm/yr under Washington to 20 mm/yr under Oregon. An integral part of this analysis is the formulation of a numerical inversion scheme which calculates both the pole of rotation between two plates and the associated errors. This method is used to determine the Euler pole for Pacific‐Juan de Fuca. This pole can then be vectorially added to previously published poles for North America‐Pacific and “hot spot”‐Pacific to obtain North America‐Juan de Fuca and “hot spot”‐Juan de Fuca, respectively. The errors associated with these resultant poles are also determined by propagating the errors of the two summed angular velocity vectors. With the assumption that hot‐spots are fixed with respect to a mantle reference frame, if is computed that the average absolute velocity of the Juan de Fuca plate is approximately 15 mm/yr, thereby making it the slowest moving of the oceanic plates.
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