One of them, Kenai Fjords National Park, lies within the accretionary wedge of uplifting oceanic sedimentary strata and hard crust. Plate tectonics is the theory that the crust of the earth is broken up into giant slabs of rocks that sort of fit together like puzzle pieces. At an ocean-continent convergent boundary, the oceanic plate is pushed under the continental plate in the same manner as at an ocean-ocean boundary. An ancient volcano, Mt. Between 200 and 150 Ma, rifting started between South America and Africa and between North America and Europe, and India moved north toward Asia. Thus subduction-zone volcanoesincluding those in the Cascadescan be explosive (think of the release of steam in a boiling pot of thick oatmeal). This plate is moving north east towards the Arabia and Eurasia plates. To the east it limits with the Caribbean plate, which is located in the Caribbean Sea and in the north of South America. The Cascades form above the line where the subducting plate extends to depths where it heats up, dehydrates and causes magma to form. Roughly 3.2 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) in area, the Caribbean. The Nazca plate is a large tectonic plate that underlies the Pacific Ocean near the western coast of South America. Asterisk - Location of the January 12, 2010 earthquake. Plates move as rigid bodies, so it may seem surprising that the North American Plate can be moving at different rates in different places. Kenai Fjords National Park Cocos Island rides on it.. This plate is moving north east towards the Caribbean and North America plates. 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 . Visitors can witness mountains as they are forming, and sometimes experience the accompanying earthquake and volcanic activity. Bold numbers are the years of moderately large (larger than about M7) historical earthquakes written next to their approximate location. , Divergent boundaries where two plates are moving apart. In her version of the Oreo cookie demonstration, the creamy filling is the layers of sediment and basalt on the ocean floor. Cocos and Rivera Plates Maximilian Goetz. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Robert J. Lillie. Caribbean Plate - Wikipedia A forearc basin develops in the low area between the two mountain ranges. Mazama 7,700 years before, the material expelled from its magma chamber did not spew forth out of the top of the volcano. For example the Juan de Fuca Plate is actually three separate plates (Gorda, Juan de Fuca, and Explorer) that all move in the same general direction but at slightly different rates. What plate boundary is the Philippines and Eurasian Plate? Cocos Plate; Type: Minor: Approximate area: 2,900,000 km 2: Movement 1: north-east: Speed 1: 67 mm/year: . The Pacific Plate is the fastest, followed by the Australian and Nazca Plates. What boundary is between the Cocos Plate and the Caribbean plate Based on Keary and Vine, 1996, Global Tectonics (2ed), Blackwell Science Ltd., Oxford. EESA06 Module 4 Flashcards | Quizlet Two parallel mountain ranges have been forming as a result of the Juan de Fuca Plate subducting beneath the edge of North America. Lassen Peak in Lassen Volcanic National Park is an amalgamation of rhyolite lava domes. 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. What convergent boundary is formed between Caribbean plate and? - 2023 Katmai National Park Convergent Plate BoundariesSubduction Zones - National Park Service This plate is moving directly east towards the South America plate. View the full answer. Rift Valley - National Geographic Society 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). The overlying volcanoes have since eroded away, exposing a vast expanse of the ancient magma chambers in the Sierra Nevada. This plate is rotating counter clockwise in towards the Pacific plate. Solved Match each plate boundary with its appropriate type. | Chegg.com (Note that spreading rates are typically double the velocities of the two plates moving away from a ridge.). Along much of the boundary, the bulk of the motion occurs along the San Andreas Fault. This plate moves north and slightly west towards the Caribbean plate and the North America plate. If the seafloor rises or falls, giant sea waves (a tsunami) can form. The fact that the plates include both crustal material and lithospheric mantle material makes it possible for a single plate to be made up of both oceanic and continental crust. Cocos and Rivera Plates - Americas:Tectonics - Weebly Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve is on the Alaska Peninsula. Rates of motions of the major plates range from less than 1 cm/y to over 10 cm/y. Cocos plate - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia What are the 4 types of plate boundaries? The Unusual Case of the Mexican Subduction Zone The two parallel mountain ranges influence many of the physical and cultural aspects of the Pacific Northwest. Farther east, the continent began to rift apart in the Basin and Range Province. Is the Cocos Plate convergent or divergent? The part of the plate around the South America plate is moving northwards and a little east. Hood in Oregon, Mt. The North American Plate is one of the slowest, averaging around 1 cm/y in the south up to almost 4 cm/y in the north. The colliding continental material will not be subducted because it is too light (i.e., because it is composed largely of light continental rocks [SIAL]), but the root of the oceanic plate will eventually break off and sink into the mantle. 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. When rifting of Pangea started at approximately 200 Ma, the fissuring was along a different line from the line of the earlier collision. Mazama that formed Crater Lake. Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): Steven Earle. Layers of sandstone and shale deposited on the top of the Pacific Plate were later metamorphosed to quartzite and slate as the plate subducted beneath southern Alaska, and then shoved upward as part of the accretionary wedge. Which is true? Mount Rainier National Park showcases a 14,411-foot (4,393-meter) composite volcano. Plate Tectonics and Our National Parks (2020), Text and Illustrations by Robert J. Lillie, Emeritus Professor of Geosciences, Oregon State University [E-mail]. What type of plate boundary is the Cocos Plate? The boundary between the Pacific and North American plates in California is a transform plate boundary marked by the San Andreas strike-slip fault. Accessibility StatementFor more information contact us atinfo@libretexts.org. Right image The eruption of Mt. 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. 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. Sandstone and shale layers at Kenai Fjords are commonly metamorphosed and were so deformed during subduction and uplift that they are vertical in places. Is the Cocos plate convergent or divergent? - Our Planet Today A mid-oceanic ridge, a divergent tectonic plate boundary located along the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Now suppose the subduction processes that form the volcanoes were to stop, shutting off the magma supply that feeds the volcanoes. State quarters can be used to demonstrate the current and ancient volcanic landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and California. Subduction of the Farallon Plate beneath the entire West Coast created a line of volcanoes from Alaska to Central America. North America plate, South America plate, Cocos plate. This plate is in the Pacific Ocean between the Pacific plate and the South America plate. This plate is moving north east towards the Eurasia plate and the Pacific plate. The North American plate is moving to the west-southwest at about 2.3 cm (~1 inch) per year driven by the spreading center that created the Atlantic Ocean, the Mid Atlantic Ridge. The largest earthquakes occur near the surface where the subducting plate is still cold and strong. The North American Plate is one of the slowest, averaging around 1 cm/y in the south up to almost 4 cm/y in the north. Remove unwanted regions from map data QGIS. Off the Pacific coast, the Cocos plate is subducted beneath both the North American and Caribbean plates, which are separated by a sinistral transcurrent boundary. 10.4: Plate, Plate Motions, and Plate Boundary Processes This plate is bound by the North-American and Caribbean Plates to the north-east, the small Rivera Plate to the north-west, the Pacific Plate to the west, A series of explosions and ash clouds from the peak between 1914 and 1921 represents the last large volcanic eruption within the lower 48 states prior to Washingtons Mt. Near the western edge of the continent, the Juan de Fuca Plate plunges downward and some of the layers of hard crust and ocean sediments are scraped off the top and squeezed upward as the Olympic Mountains and other coastal ranges. 100% (1 rating) SOLUTION: * The plate boundaries moving towards each other are called the convergent plate boundaries. Observations. It runs along the north western coast of the United States and the southern British Columbia coast. Magmas high in silica are thick and pasty. In 1912 the Katmai region erupted an estimated 7 cubic miles (30 cubic kilometers) of ash and pyroclastic material, roughly 50 times the amount that came out of Washingtons Mt. As the Atlantic Ocean floor gets weighed down around its margins by great thickness of continental sediments (i.e., geosynclines), it will be pushed farther and farther into the mantle, and eventually the oceanic lithosphere may break away from the continental lithosphere (Figure \(\PageIndex{12}\)). 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. Looking first at Washington, one sees Mt. Plate Tectonics and Volcanic Activity - National Geographic Society 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. With continued uplift and erosion, most of the volcanic material would erode. Layers of pillow basalt exposed at NPS sites in the Coastal Ranges are evidence that lava flows that formed in the Pacific Ocean were later scraped off the subducting plate and lifted upward as part of the accretionary wedge. Produced under a Cooperative Agreement for earth science education between the National Park Service's Geologic Resources Division and the American Geosciences Institute. 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. Left image The part of California west of the San Andreas Fault and all of Baja California are on the Pacific Plate. Transform Plate Boundaries - Geology (U.S. National Park Service) Volcanic and metamorphic rocks exposed in Kenai Fjords National Park reveal the incredible forces that occur at an ocean/continent subduction zone. Rainier, a composite volcano rising to over 14,000 feet above sea level in Mt. A transform plate boundary developed where the Pacific Plate was in contact with the North American Plate and the volcanism ceased in central California. The Cocos plate is a geologically young oceanic tectonic plate.It is beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America. Photo courtesy of Robert J. Lillie. The 1,200-kilometer-long San Andreas fault zone is part of the boundary between the Pacific and North American plates, and thus is known as a transform fault. Redoubt, on the eastern side of the park, had four explosive eruptions that resulted in large volumes of ash and mudflows. This plate is moving north east towards the Eurasia plate. It runs from the tip of South America eastwards to form a barrier between the Antarctic plate and the South America plate. Among them are Mt. Lake Clark National Park Where tectonic plates converge, the one with dense, thin oceanic crust subducts beneath the one with thick, more buoyant continental crust. Fortunately, no one was injured. The three West Coast states are especially meaningful because they have geologic features that, when the quarters are stacked, represent the surface and subsurface of the chain of volcanoes that has been developing over the past 200 million years. It is named after Cocos Island, the only emergent island on the plate. 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). The distribution and depths of earthquakes in the Caribbean and Central America area are shown in Figure 11.2.3. The initial magma formed as mantle rock melts beneath a subduction zone has low silica (basalt) composition. This plate makes up all of Antarctica and much of the surrounding ocean. On the western edge of the plate is a continuous subduction zone where the Cocos, Panama, and North Andean Plates are all converging with the Caribbean Plate. . Modified from The Geology of our National Parks, Monuments and Seashores, by Robert J. Lillie, New York, W. W. Norton and Company, 298 pp., 2005, www.amazon.com/dp/0134905172. Many rift valleys are part of " triple junctions," a type of divergent boundary where three tectonic plates meet at about 120 angles. The Pacific plate is subducting beneath the Philippine Sea plate to the east while the west/northwestern part of the Philippine Sea plate is subducting beneath the continental Eurasian plate. Four-letter codes indicate the ancient volcanic arc parks listed near the top of this page. What type of plate boundary is the Cocos Plate? - Studybuff The same forces that shift the land so dramatically also gradually build spectacular landscapes like the coastlines of the Pacific Northwest. 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. 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. 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 map shows the Juan de Fuca (JDF) and Explorer Plates off the coast of Vancouver Island. Modified from Earth: Portrait of a Planet", by S. Marshak, 2001, W. W. Norton & Comp., New York. The Sierra Nevada are a remnant of volcanoes that extended southward when the ancient Farallon Plate dove beneath the edge of North America. When mixed with water from glaciers, snowmelt, and streams, these materials can make very dense, fast-moving volcanic mudflows (known sometimes by the Indonesian term lahar). Credit: Photo courtesy of Robert J. Lillie. The magma, which is lighter than the surrounding mantle material, rises through the mantle and the overlying oceanic crust to the ocean floor where it creates a chain of volcanic islands known as an island arc. Olympic National Park, Washington All volcanic eruptions in Iceland, such as the 1973 eruption of Eldfell, the 1783 eruption of Laki, and the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajkull, are caused by the North American and the Eurasian Plates moving apart, which is a result of divergent plate boundary forces. Garibaldi in southern British Columbia, through Washington and Oregon, to Lassen Peak in northern California. Feature labels. St. Helens. The volcanoes are forming above the region where the top of the subducting Juan de Fuca Plate reaches about 50 miles (80 kilometers) depth. The east coast of North America is a passive margin and not a plate boundary. Right image Today Cocos Plate - Wikipedia Photo courtesy of Robert J. Lillie. At spreading centres, the lithospheric mantle may be very thin because the upward convective motion of hot mantle material generates temperatures that are too high for the existence of a significant thickness of rigid lithosphere (Figure \(\PageIndex{8}\)).