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What Oceanic crust tends to be and than continental crust so the denser?
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What happens in a continental to oceanic plate collision?
The oceanic plate is forced below the continental, It sinks into the mantle. An oceanic trench is formed where it descnds. The plate melts as it sinks, due in part to friction between the plates. This produces earthquakes and volcanos, and as the magma tends to contain lots of volotiles, the volcanos are explosive.
What are tectonic plates called?
There are seven Primary plates, as follows: African Plate Antarctic Plate Eurasian Plate Indo-Australian Plate North American Plate Pacific Plate South American Plate There are also seven Secondary plates, as follows: Arabian Plate Caribbean Plate Cocos Plate Juan de Fuca Plate Nazca Plate Philippine Sea Plate Scotia Plate In addition, there are over 50 Tertiary plates.
What is the state of matter of oceanic crust?
It is in a solid state of matter. Unlike the deeper rocks of the mantle, crustal rocks do not readily deform, and heating from below will cause the lowest layers to melt into magma...which being less dense tends to flow upward.
How is the crust different to the other layers?
The crust of a pizza tends to be made up mainly of wheat, while the upper layer has other ingredients, such as tomatoes, cheese, etc.
What is always characteristic of a tectonic plate?
Tectonic plates are comprised of crust and some mantle materialadd. And the whole of the plate tends to travel as one. And each plate has discrete boundaries.
Why do oceanic plates subduct?
Bacause they are composed of material that is denser than that of the continental crust. As such ocernic crust is less bouyant than contiental crust and so where oceanic crust collides with continental crust, the oceanic srust tends to be forced beneath the continetal crust.
What occures when a continental and oceanic plate collide?
At some convergent boundaries, an oceanic plate collides with acontinental plate. Oceanic crust tends to be denser and thinner thancontinentalcrust, so the denser oceanic crust gets bent and pulled under, or subducted, beneath the lighter and thicker continental crust. This forms what is called a subduction zone.
What forms from collision of continental crust and oceanic crust?
A basic mountain should be formed from the collision of continental crust and oceanic crustAnswerWhen an oceanic and a continental crust collide, the heavier oceanic crust tends to subduct under the lighter continental crust. Because of the collision and corresponding compression and also because of volcanism related to dehydration and melting of the subducted plate a mountain range is formed. The Andes mountain range is a, if not the, most typical example.
Why does one plate sink beneath another at a subduction boundary?
This is because of the differing densities of the two types of plate. Oceanic plates are composed of mafic rocks which have higher concentrations of iron and magnesium than the silica and aluminum rich rocks of the crustal plates. This concentration of iron and magnesium makes the oceanic crust more dense than the continental crust and so the oceanic crust tends to be forced under the continental crust at a subduction zone.
Why is oceanic crust predominantly basalt while continental crust is mainly granitic in composition?
Basalt is very dense while granite is lighter and can "float" on the basaltic oceanic crust. The Continental plates shift with the oceanic plates as the heavier basalt sub-ducts under the lighter granite.
What happens in a continental to oceanic plate collision?
The oceanic plate is forced below the continental, It sinks into the mantle. An oceanic trench is formed where it descnds. The plate melts as it sinks, due in part to friction between the plates. This produces earthquakes and volcanos, and as the magma tends to contain lots of volotiles, the volcanos are explosive.
Which are younger old seafloor rocks or old continental rocks?
Old sea floor rocks are much younger than old continental rocks! This is because the oceanic lithospheric plate forming the seafloor tends to be recycled at places known as subduction zones where it is forced below less dense (commonly continental) lithosphere. As such the oldest continental rocks tend to be 2-3 billion years old whereas oceanic crust neve tends to be more than a few hundred million years old.
What is the reason of the continental drift?
First, the continents do not drift! The theory of continental drift was based on observations of how the outlines of different continents appear to fit like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and that when so fitted various ancient mountain ranges, etc. align from one continent to another. But for them to 'drift' they would have to 'plow' through the solid rock of the ocean floor, which is clearly not happening. The theory of continental drift was long ago discarded and replaced as new evidence was uncovered.The speculation that continents might have 'drifted' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596. The concept was independently and more fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912, but his theory was rejected for lack of a mechanism.Following WW2 the US Navy made a series of observations showing symmetrical bands of magnetic field reversals on opposite sides of the midocean ridges. Because this information had value for military navigation, it was kept classified into the 1960s. When this information was made available to geophysicists, it confirmed key parts of the theory of plate tectonics (originally proposed in 1953).The idea of continental drift has been subsumed by the theory of plate tectonics, which explains how the continents appear to move. Convection currents in the semisolid mantle rock drag both continental and oceanic plates that float above the mantle around. The light granitic continental plate material tends to float higher, while the denser basaltic oceanic plate material tends to float lower so if they collide the continental plate will override the oceanic plate, causing it to subduct under the continental plate down into the mantle. If identical type plates collide the plates crumple and fold causing mountain ranges to form.The important thing to realize is the continents are not drifting, the tectonic plates (both continental and oceanic) of the crust are floating on the moving top surface of the mantle.
What are tectonic plates called?
There are seven Primary plates, as follows: African Plate Antarctic Plate Eurasian Plate Indo-Australian Plate North American Plate Pacific Plate South American Plate There are also seven Secondary plates, as follows: Arabian Plate Caribbean Plate Cocos Plate Juan de Fuca Plate Nazca Plate Philippine Sea Plate Scotia Plate In addition, there are over 50 Tertiary plates.
Cause of hot springs and fracture zones?
Hot springs are the product of geothermally heated water that breaks through the surface. Fracture zones are caused by movement of a nearby transform boundary. The uppermost part of the basaltic, oceanic crust tends to be very brittle; therefore, the crust will break in various spots as means of 'instantaneous stress relief'.
What is the state of matter of oceanic crust?
It is in a solid state of matter. Unlike the deeper rocks of the mantle, crustal rocks do not readily deform, and heating from below will cause the lowest layers to melt into magma...which being less dense tends to flow upward.
Why is the bottom of the fridge the coldest?
Because colder air is denser than warm air and it tends to sink.
