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Monday’s earthquake was the result of the “interaction of the Cocos plate with the North America plate,” which also generated the 1985 earthquake.

The springs were 40 to 120 kilometers above the subduction zone where the Cocos Plate dives beneath Central America.

According to a new study, published in Nature Geoscience, the approximately 37-mile long Cocos plate split apart in a few seconds and released exorbitant amounts of energy.

As for the 8.2 Mexican quake from last year, it ruptured the Cocos plate, which is relatively young at 25-million-years old, and generated a 6-foot tsunami.

They think that seawater infiltrated into the Cocos plate and potentially accelerated the cooling, which also made it more prone to the types of earthquakes seen in older and colder locations.