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A convergent boundary (also known as a destructive boundary) is an area on Earth where two or more lithospheric plates collide. One plate eventually slides beneath the other, a process known as subduction .
Convergent boundaries are areas where plates move toward each other and collide. These are also known as compressional or destructive boundaries. Obduction zones occurs when the continental plate is pushed under the oceanic plate, but this is unusual as the relative densities of the tectonic plates favours subduction of the oceanic plate. This ...
Cartoon of a tectonic collision between two continents. In geology, continental collision is a phenomenon of plate tectonics that occurs at convergent boundaries.Continental collision is a variation on the fundamental process of subduction, whereby the subduction zone is destroyed, mountains produced, and two continents sutured together.
Fold mountains form in areas of thrust tectonics, such as where two tectonic plates move towards each other at convergent plate boundary.When plates and the continents riding on them collide or undergo subduction (that is – ride one over another), the accumulated layers of rock may crumple and fold like a tablecloth that is pushed across a table, particularly if there is a mechanically weak ...
The northeasterly side is a complex but generally convergent boundary with the Pacific plate. The Pacific plate is subducting under the Australian plate, which forms the Tonga and Kermadec Trenches, and the parallel Tonga and Kermadec island arcs. It has also uplifted the eastern parts of New Zealand's North Island.
On the subducting side of the island arc is a deep and narrow oceanic trench, which is the trace at the Earth's surface of the boundary between the down-going and overriding plates. This trench is created by the downward gravitational pull of the relatively dense subducting plate on the leading edge of the plate.
The Alpine Fault marks a transform boundary between the two plates, and further south the Indo-Australian plate subducts under the Pacific plate forming the Puysegur Trench. The southern part of Zealandia, which is to the east of this boundary, is the plate's largest block of continental crust.
When one of the plates is composed of oceanic lithosphere, it dives beneath the other plate (called the overriding plate) and sinks into the Earth's mantle as a slab. The contact between the colliding plates is the megathrust fault, where the rock of the overriding plate is displaced upwards relative to the rock of the descending slab. [5]