| Subduction Retrieval |
|
Title text: Aww, the oceanic crust and the continental crust are getting married! |
|
|
Explanation
|
This is incomplete:
This page was created recently by a SUBDUCTION LICENSE. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!
|
This comic is a public service announcement (PSA) telling the reader to stay out of the Pacific Ocean on the current day. The reason for this is explained to be that someone has lost their wedding ring in a subduction zone. This is a boundary where two tectonic plates in the Earth's crust collide, and one plate dives beneath the other into the Earth's mantle. The ring can be seen glimmering on the upper surface of the subducted oceanic plate, in the accretionary wedge below the continental plate. Given that the rate at which this occurs is of a few centimetres per year at most, and assuming that the characters shown are drawn to scale and are of average human stature, it can be estimated that the ring has been in the subduction zone for about 200 years. Possibly this time has been needed to localise it and then deploy the heavy engineering displayed.
As a result, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) is "pulling the plate back up" to retrieve the ring. This would be a ridiculous idea, since no man-made machine is capable of moving entire tectonic plates.[citation needed] Even if it were possible, it is unlikely that the USGS, a national organization, would invest the time and effort required for such an operation for the relatively trivial purpose of retrieving a wedding ring, particularly for people who are presumably long since dead. If they did, though, staying out of the ocean would be a good idea, as it would be liable to cause tsunami over a wide area, as well as other dangers.
The title text jokes that since the wedding ring lies on the lower (oceanic) plate, the oceanic crust and continental crust are "getting married". Of course, most humans wouldn't be able to see the sight of the wedding ring, due to it being underground, and in the mantle, where no human could reach anyway — assuming that it hadn't already been mechanically deformed (crushed, mangled and/or broken apart) by the action of being sandwiched between two continental masses, and eventually melted.
Transcript
[A large structure resembling a bridge has been positioned over the intersection of two tectonic plates, one under the ocean and one forming a jagged, mountainous coast, with one "foot" on each plate. A winch is hanging from the center of the bridge, connected to a chain which is hooked into the oceanic crust. The winch is pulling up the crust, causing it to fold and wrinkle. Cueball and Ponytail are standing on one large fold next to where the chain is hooked to the crust, and another Cueball is standing on the continental crust. Oceanic Cueball has his arms up. On a portion of subducted oceanic crust, far below the ground, a small shining lump is visible.]
[Winch:] click click click
[Caption below panel:]
PSA: Please stay out of the Pacific Ocean today. Someone lost their wedding ring in a subduction zone and USGS is pulling the plate back up to retrieve it.
Add comment 
Create topic (use sparingly) 
Refresh Discussion
Make changes, try things out, or just have fun with the wiki here! Just leave everything above the line alone, please.
This is a test. PoolloverNathan[stalk the blue seas] 20:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
- This is not. —While False (museum | talk | contributions | logs | rights | printable version | page information | what links there | related changes | Google search | current time: 18:48) 18:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
- A foreign student asked me to help fight against his math teacher. That was unusual. He was in that class for just a couple of weeks. The teacher's phone number was sent to me. The student asked me to spam-call the teacher. 172.71.155.55 22:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
here i'm just messing around in html, ignore this
furhhfghure guyrburgryhuyvfr "rvhru"
interesting way of writing quotations xd
- hmmm this one of putting "<p>" in a line break will come in handy for when i want it to start at the same place than the first line
- Please beware that <p> on mediawiki also disables automatic paragraph breaks, so you need a closing </p> or you'll break automatic paragraph formatting for the rest of the page. Zmatt (talk) 22:06, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
edit: da hek did that "</div>" come from An user who has no account yet (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
hi uh its hard to get here.
is this a reference to undocumented feature??? hmm... this is interesting.
108.162.241.216 02:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
yum yum [citation needed]
Hiuiedeixgeyceiyedhcdiedcve
{{trout}}
This is the leaderboard:
<a href=" [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING][tab] "Cancel the meeting! Our cover is blown.">
More testing: hello doesthiswork (yesitdoes) This isn't a good name (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
hi 164.58.172.158 14:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
What is this??????????????????????
King Pando (
talk) 04:25, 10 March 2026 (UTC)
Add comment
View comic discussion
There are a lot of comics that don't have set-in-stone explanations; feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.
Please only submit material directly related to xkcd and, of course, only submit material that can legally be posted and freely edited. Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked.
