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Continental-continental divergent/constructive boundary Oceanic divergent boundary: mid-ocean ridge (cross-section/cut-away view). In plate tectonics, a divergent boundary or divergent plate boundary (also known as a constructive boundary or an extensional boundary) is a linear feature that exists between two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other.
For purposes of this list, a major plate is any plate with an area greater than 20 million km 2 (7.7 million sq mi) African plate – Tectonic plate underlying Africa – 61,300,000 km 2 (23,700,000 sq mi) Antarctic plate – Major tectonic plate containing Antarctica and the surrounding ocean floor – 60,900,000 km 2 (23,500,000 sq mi)
Globally most fault zones are located on divergent plate boundaries on oceanic crust. This means that they are located around mid-ocean ridges and trend perpendicular to them. The term fracture zone is used almost exclusively for features on oceanic crust; similar structures on continental crust are instead termed transform or strike slip faults.
A detachment fault is a gently dipping normal fault associated with large-scale extensional tectonics. [1] Detachment faults often have very large displacements (tens of km) and juxtapose unmetamorphosed hanging walls against medium to high-grade metamorphic footwalls that are called metamorphic core complexes .
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge (a divergent or constructive plate boundary) located along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, and part of the longest mountain range in the world. In the North Atlantic, the ridge separates the North American from the Eurasian plate and the African plate, north and south of the Azores triple junction.
This paradoxically results in divergence which was only incorporated in the theory of plate tectonics in 1970, but still results in net destruction when summed over major plate boundaries. [2] Divergent boundaries are areas where plates move away from each other, forming either mid-ocean ridges or rift valleys. These are also known as ...
It runs along an oceanic-continental boundary, where the oceanic Nazca plate subducts beneath the continental South American plate Oceanic trenches are 50 to 100 kilometers (30 to 60 mi) wide and have an asymmetric V-shape, with the steeper slope (8 to 20 degrees) on the inner (overriding) side of the trench and the gentler slope (around 5 ...
The Mendocino fracture zone extends for over 4,000 km (2,500 mi) off the coast of California and separates the Pacific plate and Gorda plate. The bathymetric depths on the north side of the fracture zone are 800 to 1,200 m (2,600 to 3,900 ft) shallower than to the south, suggesting the seafloor north of the ridge to be younger.