Answer:
The epicenter is the point on the earth's surface vertically above the hypocenter (or focus), point in the crust where a seismic rupture begins.
Explanation:
 
        
             
        
        
        
<span>Afar, Amsterdam, Anahim, Ascension, Azores, Balleny, Bermuda, Bouvet, Bowie, Cameroon, Canary, Cape Verde, Caroline, Cobb, Comoros, Crozet, Darfur, Discovery, East Australia, Easter, Eifel, Fernando, Galápagos, Gough, Guadalupe, Hawaii, Heard, Hoggar, Iceland, Jan Mayen, Juan Fernandez, Kerguelen, Lord Howe, Louisville, Macdonald, Madeira, Marion, Marquesas, Meteor hotspot, New England, Pitcairn, Raton, Réunion, St. Helena, St. Paul, Samoa, San Felix, Shona, Society, Socorro, Tasmanid, Tibesti, Trindade, Tristan, Vema, Yellowstone.</span><span />
        
             
        
        
        
Answer:
Ethos. 
Explanation:
An author employs a variety of persuasive techniques to convince the readers to believe in his claims. Aristotle proposed the three major persuasive appeals: ethos(ethical appeal), pathos(emotional appeal), and logos(logical appeal) that authors employ to persuade the audience. 
Ethos is demonstrated as the appeal that convinces the audience by appealing to their ethics by establishing the credibility of his claim. 
In the given example, '<u>ethos</u>' is the rhetorical appeal employed by the author as he uses 'the findings of a credible scientific researcher' that would assist him to establish the reliability and ethical character of his claim and appeal to the ethics of the audience to persuade them to accept and believe in his argument and elicit desired response from them. 
 
        
             
        
        
        
a drop of water may spend over 3,000 years in the ocean before moving on to another part of the water cycle