The Carnegie Ridge is an oceanic plateau that formed as the Nazca plate passed over the Galapagos hotspot.
The plate interface above the subducted part of the ridge has a shallower dip than the area to both north and south, the boundaries interpreted to consist of two large tears in the downgoing Nazca plate.
[1] The northern part of Ecuador overlies the subducted part of the Carnegie Ridge and is an area where the Nazca plate is interpreted to be strongly coupled to the South American plate, causing an unusually large degree of intraplate deformation.
[2] Earthquakes that affect Ecuador can be divided into those that result from movement on the subduction interface along the plate boundary, those that result from deformation within the South American and Nazca plates and those that are associated with active volcanoes.
Earthquakes within the downgoing Nazca plate, such as the Mw 7.1 event of August 2010, are generally too deep to cause significant damage in Ecuador although they are felt over a wide area.