Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
These active margins can be convergent or transform margins, and are also places of high tectonic activity, including volcanoes and earthquakes. The West Coast of North America and South America are active margins. [4] Active continental margins are typically narrow from coast to shelf break, with steep descents into trenches. [4] Convergent ...
Continental volcanic arc and cordilleran orogen; Adjacent continental masses located along strike (such as Barbados). Material transported into the trench by gravity sliding and debris flow from the forearc ridge (olistostrome) Piggy-back basins, which are small basins located in surface depression on the accretionary prism.
A continental arc is a type of volcanic arc occurring as an "arc-shape" topographic high region along a continental margin.The continental arc is formed at an active continental margin where two tectonic plates meet, and where one plate has continental crust and the other oceanic crust along the line of plate convergence, and a subduction zone develops.
Airy isostasy, in which a constant-density crust floats on a higher-density mantle, and topography is determined by the thickness of the crust. Airy isostasy applied to a real-case basin scenario, where the total load on the mantle is composed by a crustal basement, lower-density sediments and overlying marine water
Wadati–Benioff zone earthquakes develop beneath volcanic island arcs and continental margins above active subduction zones. [3] They can be produced by slip along the subduction thrust fault or slip on faults within the downgoing plate, as a result of bending and extension as the plate is pulled into the mantle. [ 4 ]
Turbidity currents can sometimes result from submarine seismic instability, which is common with steep underwater slopes, and especially with submarine trench slopes of convergent plate margins, continental slopes and submarine canyons of passive margins. With an increasing continental shelf slope, current velocity increases, as the velocity of ...
Canyons are steeper, shorter, more dendritic and more closely spaced on active than on passive continental margins. [3] The walls are generally very steep and can be near vertical. The walls are subject to erosion by bioerosion, or slumping. There are an estimated 9,477 submarine canyons on Earth, covering about 11% of the continental slope. [7]
The continental shelf and the slope are part of the continental margin. [ 6 ] The shelf area is commonly subdivided into the inner continental shelf , mid continental shelf , and outer continental shelf , [ 7 ] each with their specific geomorphology [ 8 ] [ 9 ] and marine biology .