Is the Nazca Plate a convergent boundary? The apparent line of collision runs between Norway and Sweden, between Scotland and England, through Ireland, through Newfoundland, and the Maritimes, through the northeastern and eastern states, and across the northern end of Florida. Novarupta Lava Dome Produced under a Cooperative Agreement for earth science education between the National Park Service's Geologic Resources Division and the American Geosciences Institute. Transform faults do not just connect divergent boundaries. The boundary between the Pacific and North American plates in California is a transform plate boundary marked by the San Andreas strike-slip fault. When caught between the converging Juan de Fuca and North American plates, the pillows and other ocean layers can be lifted upward to more than a mile above sea level. This plate is rotating in a clockwise direction towards the Pacific plate. The original composite volcano was about 7,000 feet (2,000 meters) high, but lost about 2,500 feet (750 meters) of its height. It is suggested that this type of valley eventually develops into a linear sea (such as the present-day Red Sea), and finally into an ocean (such as the Atlantic). Listing total number of features into an ArcGIS Online feature pop-up, Convergent boundaries: where two plates are colliding. MORB Mid ocean ridge basalt subduction zones Which is true? As fluid basalt lava flows into the ocean it forms a pile of globular structures known as pillows. Chapter 2 Flashcards | Quizlet Subduction of the Farallon Plate beneath the entire West Coast created a line of volcanoes from Alaska to Central America. The major plates are Eurasia, Pacific, India, Australia, North America, South America, Africa, and Antarctic. There are also numerous small plates (e.g., Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Nazca, Scotia, Philippine, Caribbean), and many very small plates or sub-plates. Subduction of the Cocos plate beneath the North American plate along the Middle American Trench in Mexico generates large to great earthquakes every 30-100 years. The eruption of Aniakchak Volcano about 3,500 years ago rivals the eruption and collapse of Mt. Now you should see color coded lines that are the plate boundaries, and the names of Earth's major plates. 40 Million Years Ago WrangellSt. Two arms of the triple junction can split to form an entire ocean. The low region between the two mountain ranges is the Puget Sound area of Washington and the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Taiwan area is the collision boundary between the Philippine Sea plate and the Eurasia plate, which has complex interaction, attracting much attention[3033]. Rainier were to suddenly and violently eruptso much that its magma chamber empties and the volcanic peak collapses in on itself. Step 2/2. On Dec. 15, 1989 a jet with 244 passengers and crew was en route from Amsterdam to Anchorage. The triangular zone of partial melting near the ridge crest is approximately 60 km thick and the proportion of magma is about 10% of the rock volume, thus producing crust that is about 6 km thick. the East Pacific Rise has created rift valleys where the Pacific plate is separating from the North American plate, Cocos plate, . This plate is moving north east towards the Arabia and Eurasia plates. As discussed in the context of subduction-related volcanism in Chapter 4, the significant volume of water within the subducting material is released as the subducting crust is heated. A transform plate boundary developed where the Pacific Plate was in contact with the North American Plate and the volcanism ceased in central California. Kenai Fjords National Park Credit: Photo Courtesy of Robert J. Lillie. Massive areas of granite from the cooled magma chambers that fed the volcanoes form portions of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, including Yosemite National Park. Modified from "Beauty and the Beast: Plate Tectonics and the Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest", by Robert J. Lillie, Wells Creek Publishers, 92 pp., www.amazon.com/dp.1512211893. The initial magma formed as mantle rock melts beneath a subduction zone has low silica (basalt) composition. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Robert J. Lillie. It formed millions of years ago when the Farallon Plate split into the Cocos Plate and the Nazca Plate.. Their high-silica magmas produce not only andesite and rhyolite lava flows, but also lots of other volcanic materials such as ash and pumice. This affects not only plant and animal communities, but also human habitation and land use. Introduction The Cocos Plate is a relatively small sized, triangular-shaped oceanic plate located just west of Mexico and the Caribbean. Eventually Africa will split apart. Lassen Peak in Lassen Volcanic National Park is an amalgamation of rhyolite lava domes. It separates the Pacific Plate to the west from (north to south) the North American Plate, the Rivera Plate, the Cocos Plate, the Nazca Plate, and the Antarctic Plate. As explained above, most transform faults connect segments of mid-ocean ridges and are thus ocean-ocean plate boundaries (Figure \(\PageIndex{11}\)). Mt. And, as at Mt. North America plate, South America plate, Cocos plate. Is the Cocos Plate convergent or divergent? Two parallel mountain ranges commonly develop above such a subduction zone a coastal range consisting of sedimentary strata and hard rock lifted out of the sea (accretionary wedge), and a volcanic range farther inland (volcanic arc). Magma from the mantle pushing up to fill the voids left by divergence of the two plates, Magma cooling more slowly in the lower part of the new crust and forming gabbro bodies, Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Plates tect2 en by the. A map of the ocean floor reveals a deep underwater trench (dark blue line) running along the southern coast of Mexico, defining the boundary between two tectonic plates. The Philippine Sea Plate has an area of approximately 3400 square kilometers. At present, North and South America, Europe, and Africa are moving with their respective portions of the Atlantic Ocean. Continental drift and sea-floor spreading became widely accepted around 1965 as more and more geologists started thinking in these terms. The northern boundary of the Cocos Plate is the Middle America Trench. A divergent boundary occurs when two tectonic plates move away from each other. Transform boundaries are places where plates slide sideways past each other. Solids and gases are also part of the mix. They are part of the volcanic arc that extends northeastward from the Aleutian Islands, across the Alaska Peninsula and Aniakchak National Monument, Katmai and Lake Clark national parks, and then bends eastward to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. The spectacular pillow lavas seen on the road up Hurricane Ridge indicate that lava formed on the sea floor and was later uplifted. North American Plate Eurasian Plate ht Arabian Plate Juan de Fuca Plate Caribbean Plate . But parks in the Cascade Mountains within the same subduction zone are dramatically different. To the north it borders the North American Plate, which encompasses the entire north of the continent. Images above modified from Oregon's Island in the Sky: Geology Road Guide to Marys Peak, by Robert J. Lillie, Wells Creek Publishers, 75 pp., 2017, www.amazon.com/dp/1540611965. Solved Tectonic Plates Use this map to answer the following - Chegg The line of active volcanoes, from Mt. Based on Keary and Vine, 1996, Global Tectonics (2ed), Blackwell Science Ltd., Oxford. Crater Lake in Crater Lake National Park partially fills the large depression formed when a composite volcano erupted and collapsed in on itself 7,700 years ago. This subduction forms the volcanoes of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, also known as the Central America Volcanic Arc. The addition of water to the hot mantle lowers the rockss melting point and leads to the formation of magma (flux melting) (Figure \(\PageIndex{6}\)). If this continues without changing for another couple hundred million years, we will be back to where we started, with one supercontinent. It runs from the tip of South America eastwards to form a barrier between the Antarctic plate and the South America plate. Along this fault, the Pacific plate is moving northwestward relative to the North American plate at an approximate rate of 16.4 feet per 100 years (5 cm/year). Near their boundary, the plates can lock together for centuries, then suddenly let go as a giant earthquake. Divergent boundaries are spreading boundaries, where new oceanic crust is created to fill in the space as the plates move apart. There is tremendous deformation of the pre-existing continental rocks, and creation of mountains from that rock, from any sediments that had accumulated along the shores (i.e., within geosynclines) of both continental masses, and commonly also from some ocean crust and upper mantle material. This plate is small. What type of plate boundary is Antarctic and Australian plate? Ancient magma chamber rocks can be exposed if subduction stops and the volcanoes erode away. The Philippine Sea Plate. The Cocos Plate is a young oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America, named for Cocos Island, which rides upon it. Hood in Oregon, Mt. The Cocos plate is a geologically young oceanic tectonic plate.It is beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America. The volcanoes are forming above the region where the top of the subducting Juan de Fuca Plate reaches about 50 miles (80 kilometers) depth. 20 Million Years Ago The Philippine Sea plate is tectonically unusual in that almost all the boundaries are convergent. CC BY. We know that the JDF Plate is moving toward the North American Plate at around 4 centimeters per year to 5 centimeters per year. The plates are made up of crust and the lithospheric part of the mantle (Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\)), and even though they are moving all the time, and in different directions, there is never a significant amount of space between them. This plate is moving northwest towards the Australia, Filipino, and Eurasia plates. By 50 Ma, Australia had separated from Antarctic, and shortly after that, India collided with Asia. Boundaries between the plates are of three types: divergent (i.e., moving apart), convergent (i.e., moving together), and transform (moving side by side). An ancient volcano, Mt. Mount Rainier is a 14,000 foot (4,300 meter) volcano in the Cascade Range developed above the place where the subducting Juan de Fuca Plate reaches sufficient depth to release hot fluids into the overriding North American Plate. The series of hot spots that has been identified in the Atlantic Ocean may also have existed for several hundred million years, and thus may have contributed to rifting in roughly the same place on at least two separate occasions (Figure \(\PageIndex{13}\)). The Pacific Plate is almost entirely oceanic, but it does include the part of California west of the San Andreas Fault. 100% (1 rating) SOLUTION: * The plate boundaries moving towards each other are called the convergent plate boundaries. This plate is moving north east towards the Eurasia plate and the Pacific plate. Observations. Storms coming in from the Pacific Ocean drop most of their moisture on the Coast Range and Cascades, leaving eastern Oregon and Washington high and dry. Where are Puerto Rico and Hispaniola located on the plate? For example, the North American Plate includes most of North America, plus half of the northern Atlantic Ocean. Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve is on the Alaska Peninsula. Illustrations above modified from Beauty from the Beast: Plate Tectonics and the Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, by Robert J. Lillie, Wells Creek Publishers, 92 pp., 2015, www.amazon.com/dp/1512211893. What type of plate boundaies are found between the Cocos, Nazca, and Pacific plates? Detailed Description Map of the North American - Caribbean tectonic plate boundary. Crater Lake. Sediment that has accumulated on the continental slope is thrust up into an accretionary wedge, and compression leads to thrusting within the continental plate (Figure \(\PageIndex{7}\)). As the basalt magma rises up through the thick continental crust of North America, it melts some of that rock, too. Drum (right). The map shows the major tectonic plates that compose Earth's crust and upper mantle Arrows indicate direction of plate movement and the size of the arrows indicate rate of movement. The Cocos Ridge (CR), which formed when the Cocos Plate drifted over the Galapagos Hotspot (Walther, 2003) , is a bathymetric high reaching about 2 km above the surrounding seafloor and stretching about 2000 km long and 200-300 km wide across the Cocos Plate . Three others, Aniakchak National Monument, Katmai National Park, and Lake Clark National Park, are farther inland, along the active volcanic arc. What type of plate boundary is between the Nazca and Cocos Plate? With continued uplift and erosion, most of the volcanic material would erode. Compaction in the Rock Cycle: Understanding the Process Behind Sedimentary Rock Formation, Crystallization in the Water Cycle: A Fundamental Process in Water Distribution and Purification, Understanding Crystallization in the Rock Cycle: A Fundamental Process in Rock Formation, Extracting Lat/Lng from Shapefile using OGR2OGR/GDAL. Farther east the Juan de Fuca Plate descends deeper and deeper. Juan De Fuca Plate - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics This map shows the Juan de Fuca (JDF) and Explorer Plates off the coast of Vancouver Island. Rainier National Park. Within the past few million years, rifting has taken place in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, and also within the Gulf of California. Gases may be trapped in them under high pressure. A visit to Olympic National Park is an opportunity to witness features of an accretionary wedge as they develop. The Cocos Plate in the Pacific Ocean is subducted beneath the Caribbean Plate, just off the western coast of Central America. Plate Tectonics | Pacific Northwest Seismic Network And very large parks in the Southern Alaska Subduction Zone display magnificent mountains, rock layers and active volcanoes that tell the story ongoing plate convergence along the North Pacific Coast. South America plate, Antarctic plate, Eurasia plate, North America plate, Arabia plate, India plate, Australia plate. During the same period, the Atlantic Ocean began to open up between northern Africa and North America, and India broke away from Antarctica. National Park Service sites in the Cascades reveal colorful landscapes that result from a varity of volcanic processes. A convergent plate boundary is a location where two tectonic plates are moving toward each other, often causing one plate to slide below the other (in a process known as subduction). The eastern boundary is a transform fault, the Panama Fracture Zone. Some of the processes taking place in this setting include: Spreading is hypothesized to start within a continental area with up-warping or doming related to an underlying mantle plume or series of mantle plumes. In this region, the Cocos Plate is subducting beneath the North America and Caribbean Plates (ocean-continent convergence), and the South and North America Plates are subducting beneath the Caribbean Plate (ocean-ocean convergence). Redoubt, an active volcano in Lake Clark National Park, illustrates how a volcano can pose an unexpected hazard in our modern age and why monitoring volcanic activity is so important (see photo below). This subduction-subduction-transform (SST) triple junction is referred to hereafter as the NACC triple junction. Examples of ocean-continent convergent boundaries are subduction of the Nazca Plate under South America (which has created the Andes Range) and subduction of the Juan de Fuca Plate under North America (creating the mountains Garibaldi, Baker, St. Garibaldi to Lassen Peak, coincides with the north-to-south extent of the subducting plate boundary. The western part of California (including Los Angeles and part of San Francisco) will split away from the rest of North America, and eventually sail right by the west coast of Vancouver Island, en route to Alaska. (Click on arrows and slide left and right to see labels.). Mazama, violently erupted 7,700 years ago. Katmai National Park Usually, one of the converging plates will move beneath the other, a process known as subduction. Garibaldi in southern British Columbia, through Washington and Oregon, to Lassen Peak in northern California. In her version of the Oreo cookie demonstration, the creamy filling is the layers of sediment and basalt on the ocean floor. Not surprisingly, many of the engravings depict landscapes of national parks. The subducted lithosphere descends into the hot mantle at a relatively shallow angle close to the subduction zone, but at steeper angles farther down (up to about 45). This highly active convergent plate boundary extends along both sides the Philippine Islands, from Luzon in the north to the Celebes Islands in the south. Visits to coastal NPS sites in the Pacific Northwest can help us appreciate the landscapes that develop over time because of these large quakes, and learn how we are preparing our homes, communities, and infrastructure for the next Big One.. The Unusual Case of the Mexican Subduction Zone See Appendix 3 for Exercise 10.5 answers. Find the boundary between the North American and Cocos plates. Over the next 50 million years, it is likely that there will be full development of the east African rift and creation of new ocean floor. 10.4 Plate, Plate Motions, and Plate Boundary Processes rare Examine the interactive globe. Accessibility StatementFor more information contact us atinfo@libretexts.org. The Cocos plate was created about 23 million years ago when a larger plate broke into two pieces. This plate is moving north east towards the Eurasia plate. From 1999 to 2008, the United States Mint issued 25-cent coins representing each of the 50 states. In central and southern California the ancient volcanoes have largely eroded away. The devastating 1985 Mexico City earthquake and the 2017 Chiapas earthquake were results of the subduction of the Cocos Plate beneath the North American Plate. Roughly 3.2 million square kilometres (1.2 million square miles) in area, the Caribbean Plate borders the North American Plate, the South American Plate, the Nazca Plate and the Cocos Plate. Vents and fractures (also called fissures ) in these mid-ocean ridges allow magma and gases to escape into the ocean. Today Map of the North American - Caribbean tectonic plate boundary Modified from Oregon's Island in the Sky: Geology Road Guide to Marys Peak, by Robert J. Lillie, Wells Creek Publishers, 75 pp., 2017, www.amazon.com/dp/1540611965. The Coast Range (including the Olympic Mountains) consists of sedimentary rock layers and hard crust scraped off the ocean floor where the Juan de Fuca Plate begins to dive downward. Plates are thought to move along the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary, as the asthenosphere is the zone of partial melting. Plate Boundaries Divergent UU) Transform North American Plate Convergent Other Plate Motion Caribbean Plate Indias Plate motion vectors rotated based on the direction of plate movement Cocos Plate Pacific Plate South American Plate Google Earth Z age Landsat / Copernicus ata SIO, NOAA . A mid-oceanic ridge, a divergent tectonic plate boundary located along the floor of the Pacific Ocean. The physical landscape was an important component of the practical and spiritual aspects of Native Americans lives. The North American Plate . Redwood National and State Parks, California The Caribbean plate is sandwiched between the North American and South American plates to the east and the Cocos, Nazca and North Andean plates to the west. Katmai volcano did collapse, but unlike Mt. Visitors to Olympic National Park, Oregon Caves National Monument, or Redwood National and State Parks can look down and imagine the top of the Juan de Fuca Plate about 10 miles (16 kilometers) beneath their feet. The Cascades are the modern volcanic arc developing where the Juan de Fuca Plate subducts beneath the North American Plate. The subducting boundary through Indonesia is not parallel to the biogeographical Wallace line that separates the indigenous fauna of Asia from that of Australasia. This plate makes up most of the Pacific Ocean. Cocos and Rivera Plates Maximilian Goetz. Four-letter codes indicate the ancient volcanic arc parks listed near the top of this page. North America plate, Australia plate, Antarctic plate, Nazca plate, Filipino plate, Cocos plate, Juan de Fuca plate. As they were caught in the vise between the converging Juan de Fuca and North American plates, some of the layers were so contorted that they are now in vertical orientations along the coast. National Park Service sites are shown in red. Error message | View complete answer on https://www.britannica.com Are the Nazca Plate and South American plates divergent plates? KEFJKenai Fjords National Park, Alaska[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home], CRLACrater Lake National Park, Oregon[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home], LAVOLassen Volcanic National Park, California[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home], MORAMount Rainier National Park, Washington[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home], ANIAAniakchak National Monument and Preserve, Alaska[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home], KATMKatmai National Park, Alaska[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home], LACLLake Clark National Park, Alaska[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home]. Examples of ocean-ocean convergent zones are subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the North America Plate south of Alaska (Aleutian Islands) and beneath the Philippine Plate west of the Philippines, subduction of the India Plate beneath the Eurasian Plate south of Indonesia, and subduction of the Atlantic Plate beneath the Caribbean Plate (see Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)). Western Mexico, where the young and small Rivera Plate and the adjacent large Cocos Plate are subducting beneath the North American Plate, is a unique Right image St. Helens, a lava dome later grew within the breached crater near the mountains summit. What plate boundary is the Philippines and Eurasian Plate? Mazama that formed Crater Lake. It is bordered by the Caribbean, North American, Pacific, and Nazca tectonic plates. We also acknowledge previous National Science Foundation support under grant numbers 1246120, 1525057, and 1413739. The subduction formed a line of volcanoes stretching all the way from Alaska to Central America. Between the African plate and the Indian plate Choose. It was preceded by Pannotia (600 to 540 Ma), by Rodinia (1,100 to 750 Ma), and by others before that. Transform boundaries exist where one plate slides past another without production or destruction of crustal material. This plate is small. Unclick all the other layers you've been using, and then click next to . Volcanic and metamorphic rocks exposed in Kenai Fjords National Park reveal the incredible forces that occur at an ocean/continent subduction zone. Plate of Cocos: Location and General Characteristics It is likely that as many as 20 mantle plumes, many of which still exist, were responsible for the initiation of the rifting of Pangea along what is now the mid-Atlantic ridge (see Figure \(\PageIndex{10}\)). Mt. The collapse caldera from the Katmai eruption is about 3 miles (5 kilometers) across and 2,000 feet (600 meters) deep. Feature labels. Parks in the Cascadia Subduction Zone dramatically display the two distinct mountain ranges the Coast Range just above where the Juan de Fuca Plate begins to subduct, and the volcanic Cascade Range farther inland, where the top of the plate is deeper. The rising hot water causes overlying rock to melt, generating magma that at times erupts out on the surface as lava flows and other materials forming Mt. Is the Nazca plate convergent or divergent? Sandstone and shale layers at Kenai Fjords are commonly metamorphosed and were so deformed during subduction and uplift that they are vertical in places. The Cascade Volcanoes extend in a north-south line from Mt. Asterisk - Location of the January 12, 2010 earthquake. There are also numerous small plates (e.g., Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Nazca, Scotia, Philippine, Caribbean), and many very small plates or sub-plates. View the full answer. The Cascades form above the line where the subducting plate extends to depths where it heats up, dehydrates and causes magma to form. Would you characterize earthquake activity as. Yosemite Valley and Half Dome. What type of plate boundary is North American and Eurasian Plates? Thus subduction-zone volcanoesincluding those in the Cascadescan be explosive (think of the release of steam in a boiling pot of thick oatmeal). Without referring to the plate map in Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\), or any other resources, write in the names of as many of the plates as you can. This beauty is part of the reason that residents and visitors have learned to tolerate, and develop ways to mitigate, the effects of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptionsbeasts that are consequences of the same tectonic forces that create the regions beauty. Photo courtesy of Robert J. Lillie. The overlying volcanoes have since eroded away, exposing a vast expanse of the ancient magma chambers in the Sierra Nevada. The vent was the source for most of the ash and pyroclastic flows expelled during the 1912 eruptions, and has since filled with a lava dome known as Novarupta. Left image Half Dome in Yosemite National Park is made of granite that solidified from magma tens of millions of years ago, when a subduction zone extended along the entire west coast. This plate is small. They contain explosive volcanoes formed as fluids rise from the top of the subducting plate and generate magma as they melt their way to the surface. The rising water melts rock in its path, forming a volcanic arc on the overrriding plate.