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Today, the African plate is moving over Earth's surface at a speed of 32.51 km per million years relative to the Earth's "average" crust velocities (see NNR-MORVEL56) Map of East Africa showing some of the historically active volcanoes (red triangles) and the Afar Triangle (shaded, center) – a triple junction where three plates are pulling ...
The geology of Europe is varied and complex, and gives rise to the wide variety of landscapes found across the continent, from the Scottish Highlands to the rolling plains of Hungary. Europe's most significant feature is the dichotomy between highland and mountainous Southern Europe and a vast, partially underwater, northern plain ranging from ...
These plates comprise the bulk of the continents and the Pacific Ocean. 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)
Forming the Atlantic segment of the boundary between the African and Eurasian plates, the AGFZ is largely dominated by compressional forces between these converging (3.8 to 5.6 mm/a (0.15 to 0.22 in/year)) plates, but it is subject to a dynamic tectonic regime that also involves extension and transform faulting.
The geology of Sicily (a large island located at Italy's southwestern end) records the collision of the Eurasian and the African plates during westward-dipping subduction of the African slab since late Oligocene. [1] [2] Major tectonic units are the Hyblean foreland, the Gela foredeep, the Apenninic-Maghrebian orogen, and the Calabrian Arc.
However, the Somali plate covers much of eastern Africa, creating the East African Rift. In the eastern Mediterranean, the Aegean Sea plate, Anatolian plate and Arabian plate also form a boundary with the African plate, which incorporates the Sinai Peninsula, Gulf of Aqaba and the coastal Levant via the Dead Sea transform.
The divergent movement of the European and African plates was relatively short-lived. When the Atlantic Ocean formed between Africa and South America (about 100 Ma) Africa began moving northeast. As a result of this process, the soft layers of ocean sediment in the Alpine Tethys Oceans were compressed and folded as they were slowly thrust ...
The Alpine orogeny is caused by the continents Africa, Arabia and India and the small Cimmerian Plate colliding (from the south) with Eurasia in the north. Convergent movements between the tectonic plates (the African Plate, the Arabian Plate and the Indian Plate from the south, the Eurasian Plate and the Anatolian Sub-Plate from the north, and many smaller plates and microplates) had already ...