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. 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. The Cocos plate is a geologically young oceanic tectonic plate.It is beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America. 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 Coast Range (accretionary wedge), Great Valley (forearc basin), and Sierra Nevada (volcanic arc) still reflect the subduction zone topography. 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. Farther inland, the subducting plate reaches depths where it sweats hot water. This plate includes Australia and much of the surrounding ocean. The Cocos Plate Examine the interactive globe. The best example is the San Andreas Fault on the Pacific coast of the United States. St. Helens. The northern boundary of the Cocos Plate is the Middle America Trench. The boundary between the Pacific and North American plates in California is a transform plate boundary marked by the San Andreas strike-slip fault. There is strong evidence around the margins of the Atlantic Ocean that this process has taken place before. 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. The Cocos Plate is subducting beneath the Caribbean Plate, while the Caribbean Plate is subducting below both the Panama Plate and the North Andean Plate. This is the zone where the two plates have been locked together since the last great earthquake occurred in the year 1700. Mount Rainier National Park showcases a 14,411-foot (4,393-meter) composite volcano. 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. The roots of ancient mountain belts, which are present along the eastern margin of North America, the western margin of Europe, and the northwestern margin of Africa, show that these land masses once collided with each other to form a mountain chain, possibly as big as the Himalayas. See Appendix 3 for Exercise 10.5 answers. By 50 Ma, Australia had separated from Antarctic, and shortly after that, India collided with Asia. Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area are the only two NPS sites that are right on the San Andreas Fault. Feature labels. Likewise, individual volcanic eruptions may add only a thin layer to the surface. The rocks on top of the plate are metamorphosed due to the great temperatures and pressures at those depths. Tilted layers of thick sandstone (pink) and thin shale (dark) along the coast at Olympic National Park reveal the enormous forces that lifted and deformed the oceanic layers as the Juan de Fuca and North American plates converged. It runs along the west coast of Mexico and western Caribbean countries. 40 Million Years Ago Is the Philippine plate convergent or divergent? Antarctic plate, Pacfic plate, Eurasia plate, India Plate, Africa plate. By 80 Ma, Africa had separated from South America, most of Europe had separated from North America, and India had separated from Antarctica. The southern boundary is a mid-oceanic ridge, the Galapagos Rise. Unclick all the other layers you've been using, and then click next to . Olympic National Park, Washington Kenai Fjords National Park 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. Ranger Jens Oreo Demo Transform faults do not just connect divergent boundaries. Farther east the Juan de Fuca Plate descends deeper and deeper. Accessibility StatementFor more information contact us atinfo@libretexts.org. The lake partially fills a collapsed crater (caldera) that formed when a 12,000-foot (3,700-meter) composite volcano, Mt. The part of the plate around the South America plate is moving northwards and a little east. Subduction zones occur when one or both of the tectonic plates are composed of oceanic crust. 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. What is the example of transform boundary? Magmas high in silica are thick and pasty. Among them are Mt. This is what has happened in the Sierra Nevada of central and southern California, as represented by the granite-type rocks of Half Dome within Yosemite National Park shown on the California state quarter. the East Pacific Rise has created rift valleys where the Pacific plate is separating from the North American plate, Cocos plate, . The Sierra Nevada are a remnant of volcanoes that extended southward when the ancient Farallon Plate dove beneath the edge of North America. Solids and gases are also part of the mix. The park is a complex amalgamation of blocks of continental and oceanic crust that have slammed into North America. The mafic magma produced adjacent to the subduction zone rises to the base of the continental crust and leads to partial melting of the crustal rock. 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. Helens, Rainier, Hood, and Shasta, collectively known as the Cascade Range). Subduction in the Pacific Northwest creates incredible beauty in the form of coastlines, mountains, and valleysiconic features of the many National Park Service sites in the region. Mazama, Aniakchak no longer holds a large lake because the caldera wall is breached. After a terrifying free-fall that lasted 8 minutes, the pilots finally managed to restart the engines at only 6,000 feet (2,000 meters). The 6-mile (10-kilometer) wide caldera is about 2,000 feet (600 meters) deep. Convergent boundaries, where two plates are moving toward each other, are of three types, depending on whether oceanic or continental crust is present on either side of the boundary. The buoyancy of the mantle plume material creates a dome within the crust, causing it to fracture in a radial pattern, with three arms spaced at approximately 120 (Figure \(\PageIndex{5}\)). 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). Five park sites in southern Alaska showcase landscapes formed by the subduction of the northward-moving Pacific Plate beneath North America. The resulting magma ascends through the crust, producing a mountain chain with many volcanoes. The Pacific Northwest is an exciting place to observe geologic processes in action. 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. Dramatic examples of these layers in tilted and contorted forms can be found in Olympic National Park and elsewhere along the coast and in the mountains. Listing total number of features into an ArcGIS Online feature pop-up, Convergent boundaries: where two plates are colliding. The Philippine Plate, also known as the Philippine Sea Plate, is a small tectonic plate between the Eurasian Plate and the Pacific Plate. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Robert J. Lillie. The subduction formed a line of volcanoes stretching all the way from Alaska to Central America. The west side of California is moving north, and the east side is moving south. The most famous example of a transform boundary is the San Andreas Fault in California. 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. On Dec. 15, 1989 a jet with 244 passengers and crew was en route from Amsterdam to Anchorage. Remove the Oregon quarter to reveal cooled magma chamber rocks below. The addition of water to the hot mantle lowers the rockss melting point and leads to the formation of magma (flux melting) (Figure \(\PageIndex{6}\)). North American Plate Eurasian Plate ht Arabian Plate Juan de Fuca Plate Caribbean Plate . Some parks in the Sierra Nevada Mountains reveal igneous magma chamber rocks that represent the eroded remnants of an ancient subduction zone, when volcanoes similar to those found in the modern Cascade Mountains extended southward all the way through California. WrangellSt. Divergent boundaries are spreading boundaries, where new oceanic crust is created from magma derived from partial melting of the mantle caused by decompression as hot mantle rock from depth is moved toward the surface (Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\)). The Pacific Plate is moving to the northwest at a speed of between 7 and 11 centimeters (cm) or ~3-4 inches a year. National Park Service sites in the Coastal Ranges of Washington, Oregon and northern California contain rugged mountains of rocks that were manufactured in the ocean, then scraped off the plate and lifted out of the sea. . It includes the central Caribbean countries and runs along the northern edge of South America. Lassen Peak in Lassen Volcanic National Park is an amalgamation of rhyolite lava domes. Based on Keary and Vine, 1996, Global Tectonics (2ed), Blackwell Science Ltd., Oxford. This plate is moving directly east towards the South America plate. Left image 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. The low region between the two mountain ranges is the Puget Sound area of Washington and the Willamette Valley in Oregon. During the same period, the Atlantic Ocean began to open up between northern Africa and North America, and India broke away from Antarctica. 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. Silica-rich ash melted and coated the hot engine turbines with glass, causing all four of them to shut down. The North American Plate, for example, rotates counter-clockwise; the Eurasian Plate rotates clockwise. The major plates are Eurasia, Pacific, India, Australia, North America, South America, Africa, and Antarctic. This plate is moving north west towards the Eurasia plate. and Alberta are also a result of continent-continent collisions. Examples of continent-continent convergent boundaries are the collision of the India Plate with the Eurasian Plate, creating the Himalaya Mountains, and the collision of the African Plate with the Eurasian Plate, creating the series of ranges extending from the Alps in Europe to the Zagros Mountains in Iran. USGS photo. A small piece of California, including . Granite rocks found in national parks in the Sierra Nevada are the cooled and eroded remnants of magma chambers that fed ancient subduction zone volcanoes in California. Is the Cocos Plate convergent or divergent? The northern side is a divergent boundary with the Cocos Plate, the Galapagos Rise. Taiwan area is the collision boundary between the Philippine Sea plate and the Eurasia plate, which has complex interaction, attracting much attention[3033]. Remove the Washington quarter and you can see what the landscape might look like, in the form of Crater Lake in Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. What type of boundary is the San Andreas Fault? Pangea began to rift apart along a line between Africa and Asia and between North America and South America at around 200 Ma. And as time ticks on, the region awaits sudden release of energy locked between the converging plates as a devastating earthquake. By the end of 1967 the Earths surface had been mapped into a series of plates (Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)). Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve is on the Alaska Peninsula. Ancient magma chamber rocks can be exposed if subduction stops and the volcanoes erode away. South America plate, Antarctic plate, Eurasia plate, North America plate, Arabia plate, India plate, Australia plate. Crater Lake. This map shows the boundaries between the major plates. Modified from Earth: Portrait of a Planet", by S. Marshak, 2001, W. W. Norton & Comp., New York. Garibaldi in southern British Columbia, through Washington and Oregon, to Lassen Peak in northern California. The initial magma formed as mantle rock melts beneath a subduction zone has low silica (basalt) composition. The largest earthquakes occur near the surface where the subducting plate is still cold and strong. More than 40 volcanoes have erupted in Alaska since Russians first arrived in the mid 1700s a great many of the volcanoes are in areas that are now National Park Service sites. 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. 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. 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. This plate includes all of Saudi Arabia, and much of the Levant (up to Iraq and Syria). The water rises and melts rock in its path. If the seafloor rises or falls, giant sea waves (a tsunami) can form. Subduction of the Farallon Plate beneath the entire West Coast created a line of volcanoes from Alaska to Central America. This plate is rotating in a clockwise direction towards the Pacific plate. A subduction zone will develop, and the oceanic plate will begin to descend under the continent. Most of the igneous rocks were manufactured in the ocean and are basalt. The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the north coast of South America. Rather, it flowed underground to a vent 6 miles (10 kilometers) away! Effects of the 1964 earthquake are quite spectacular in the park; the coastline dropped so much that in places it lies submerged beneath about 8 feet (2.5meters) of water. The physical landscape was an important component of the practical and spiritual aspects of Native Americans lives. The two parallel mountain ranges influence many of the physical and cultural aspects of the Pacific Northwest. National Park Service sites in the Cascades reveal colorful landscapes that result from a varity of volcanic processes. This plate makes up most of the Pacific Ocean. Rates of motions of the major plates range from less than 1 cm/y to over 10 cm/y. Sites in the Sierra Nevada Mountains reveal the eroded roots of an ancient volcanic range that formed when the subduction zone extended much farther south. The types are ocean-ocean, ocean-continent, and continent-continent. A by-product of the metamorphism is the release of hot fluids, especially water. More recent studies of continental matchups and the magnetic ages of ocean-floor rocks have enabled us to reconstruct the history of the break-up of Pangea. 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