cocos plate and north american plate boundary type
The Cocos Plate is a relatively small sized, triangular-shaped oceanic plate located just west of Mexico and the Caribbean. Magmas high in silica are thick and pasty. Regional tectonics of Central America are mainly controlled by the collision of the Cocos and the Caribbean plates. The physical landscape was an important component of the practical and spiritual aspects of Native Americans lives. Along much of the boundary, the bulk of the motion occurs along the San Andreas Fault. The northern boundary of the Cocos Plate is the Middle America Trench. Some transform faults connect continental parts of plates. Modified from "Beauty and the Beast: Plate Tectonics and the Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest", by Robert J. Lillie, Wells Creek Publishers, 92 pp., www.amazon.com/dp.1512211893. Solids and gases are also part of the mix. The Pacific Plate is moving to the northwest at a speed of between 7 and 11 centimeters (cm) or ~3-4 inches a year. Garibaldi in southern British Columbia, through Washington and Oregon, to Lassen Peak in northern California. The collapse caldera from the Katmai eruption is about 3 miles (5 kilometers) across and 2,000 feet (600 meters) deep. Individual earthquakes can offset or lift the land a fraction of an inch or a few inches (centimeters) at a time. Note that the dark blue line does not run further up the coast. The Cocos Plate was created approximately 23 million years ago when the Farallon Plate broke into two pieces, which also created the Nazca Plate. What type of plate boundary is North American and Eurasian Plates? Detailed Description Map of the North American - Caribbean tectonic plate boundary. Redoubt Volcano (Note that spreading rates are typically double the velocities of the two plates moving away from a ridge.). The apparent line of collision runs between Norway and Sweden, between Scotland and England, through Ireland, through Newfoundland, and the Maritimes, through the northeastern and eastern states, and across the northern end of Florida. What type of boundary is the San Andreas Fault? Crater Lake National Park has the 9th deepest lake in the world. A map of the ocean floor reveals a deep underwater trench (dark blue line) running along the southern coast of Mexico, defining the boundary between two tectonic plates. Visits to coastal NPS sites in the Pacific Northwest can help us appreciate the landscapes that develop over time because of these large quakes, and learn how we are preparing our homes, communities, and infrastructure for the next Big One.. WrangellSt. KEFJKenai Fjords National Park, Alaska[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home], CRLACrater Lake National Park, Oregon[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home], LAVOLassen Volcanic National Park, California[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home], MORAMount Rainier National Park, Washington[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home], ANIAAniakchak National Monument and Preserve, Alaska[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home], KATMKatmai National Park, Alaska[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home], LACLLake Clark National Park, Alaska[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home]. This can be demonstrated by stacking the three quarters with California on the bottom, overlain by Oregon and then Washington. Roughly 3.2 million square kilometres (1.2 million square miles) in area, the Caribbean Plate borders the North American Plate, the South American Plate, the Nazca Plate and the Cocos Plate. In doing so the magma is enriched in silica, because high-silica minerals commonly are the first ones to melt. To the north it borders the North American Plate, which encompasses the entire north of the continent. Looking first at Washington, one sees Mt. Two parallel mountain ranges have been forming as a result of the Juan de Fuca Plate subducting beneath the edge of North America. The subducted lithosphere descends into the hot mantle at a relatively shallow angle close to the subduction zone, but at steeper angles farther down (up to about 45). USGS photo. Increased temperature and pressure at that depth cause the rocks to metamorphose and dehydrate (sweat). Visitors can witness mountains as they are forming, and sometimes experience the accompanying earthquake and volcanic activity. This subduction-subduction-transform (SST) triple junction is referred to hereafter as the NACC triple junction. Final answer. Asterisk - Location of the January 12, 2010 earthquake. National Park Service sites are shown in red. The Cocos Plate Examine the interactive globe. Forty million years ago, a large tectonic plate, known as the Farallon Plate, was between the Pacific and North American plates. Volcanoes in national parks in the Cascades have eruptive personalities that reflect the complex magma systems associated with subduction zones. It is bordered by the Caribbean, North American, Pacific, and Nazca tectonic plates. Mazama, Aniakchak spewed lava across its caldera floor for centuries after its collapse. About 200 million years ago a large tectonic plate (called the Farallon Plate) started to subduct beneath the western edge of North America. This plate is moving north east towards the Eurasia plate. The plate boundary is a broad zone of deformation with a width of about 60 miles (100 kilometers). Examples of continent-continent convergent boundaries are the collision of the India Plate with the Eurasian Plate, creating the Himalaya Mountains, and the collision of the African Plate with the Eurasian Plate, creating the series of ranges extending from the Alps in Europe to the Zagros Mountains in Iran. St. Helens. Find the boundary between the North American and Cocos plates. A small piece of California, including . Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve is on the Alaska Peninsula. It formed millions of years ago when the Farallon Plate split into the Cocos Plate and the Nazca Plate.. Parks in the Cascadia Subduction Zone dramatically display the two distinct mountain ranges the Coast Range just above where the Juan de Fuca Plate begins to subduct, and the volcanic Cascade Range farther inland, where the top of the plate is deeper. What type of boundary is the Philippine plate? The mountain is mainly andesite lava flows and volcanic mudflows covered by numerous glaciers. Puget Sound and the Willamette Valley are areas near sea level between the coastal and volcanic mountain ranges. Explain why the Nootka Fault is a transform fault, and show the relative sense of motion along the fault with two small arrows. The devastating 1985 Mexico City earthquake and the 2017 Chiapas earthquake were results of the subduction of the Cocos Plate beneath the North American Plate. Like Mt. Is the Cocos Plate convergent or divergent? The Cocos Plate is subducting beneath the Caribbean Plate, while the Caribbean Plate is subducting below both the Panama Plate and the North Andean Plate. The rocks on top of the plate are metamorphosed due to the great temperatures and pressures at those depths. The rising water melts rock in its path, forming a volcanic arc on the overrriding plate. Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): Steven Earle. USGS photo. The northern boundary of the Cocos Plate is the Middle America Trench. Rather, it flowed underground to a vent 6 miles (10 kilometers) away! Geology This subduction-subduction-transform (SST) triple junction is referred to hereafter as the NACC triple junction. Crater Lake. . There are also numerous small plates (e.g., Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Nazca, Scotia, Philippine, Caribbean), and many very small plates or sub-plates. A variety of earthquakes shake the Pacific Northwest due to plate-tectonic activity. In the past, that was true. At transform boundaries lithosphere is neither created nor destroyed. It is subducting under (that is, being forced under) the South American plate. Ancient magma chamber rocks can be exposed if subduction stops and the volcanoes erode away. As the Juan de Fuca Plate (lower cookie) subducts beneath the North American Plate (upper cookie), the layers are scraped off the ocean floor and pile up as the Coast Range. As discussed in the context of subduction-related volcanism in Chapter 4, the significant volume of water within the subducting material is released as the subducting crust is heated. St. Helens in 1980. Cocos Island rides on it.. The Guerrero and Oaxaca regions of southern Mexico also experience regular SSEs. Stack the quarters with Washington on top, Oregon in the middle and California on the bottom. A forearc basin develops in the low area between the two mountain ranges. USGS photo. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Robert J. Lillie. Where is a divergent plate boundary located? Australia plate, Eurasia plate, Africa plate, Arabia plate. Credit: Photo courtesy of Robert J. Lillie. Redoubt, on the eastern side of the park, had four explosive eruptions that resulted in large volumes of ash and mudflows. Start with the major plates, and then work on the smaller ones. Kenai Fjords National Park Katmai volcano did collapse, but unlike Mt. The Coast Range (accretionary wedge), Great Valley (forearc basin), and Sierra Nevada (volcanic arc) still reflect the subduction zone topography. This plate includes all of North America, Greenland, the eastern most part of Russia, northern Japan, and the northwestern part of the Atlantic ocean. Divergent boundaries are spreading boundaries, where new oceanic crust is created to fill in the space as the plates move apart. If two tectonic plates collide, they form a convergent plate boundary. The Coast Range and Cascades are the two parallel mountain ranges that form the Cascadia Subduction Zone in the Pacific Northwest. Mt. Because the oceanic crust formed by spreading on the mid-Atlantic ridge is not currently being subducted (except in the Caribbean), the Atlantic Ocean is slowly getting bigger, and the Pacific Ocean is getting smaller. Examples of ocean-ocean convergent zones are subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the North America Plate south of Alaska (Aleutian Islands) and beneath the Philippine Plate west of the Philippines, subduction of the India Plate beneath the Eurasian Plate south of Indonesia, and subduction of the Atlantic Plate beneath the Caribbean Plate (see Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)). Visitors to Olympic National Park, Oregon Caves National Monument, or Redwood National and State Parks can look down and imagine the top of the Juan de Fuca Plate about 10 miles (16 kilometers) beneath their feet. The 6-mile (10-kilometer) wide caldera is about 2,000 feet (600 meters) deep. This plate moves north and slightly west towards the Caribbean plate and the North America plate. Sediment that has accumulated on the continental slope is thrust up into an accretionary wedge, and compression leads to thrusting within the continental plate (Figure \(\PageIndex{7}\)). Subduction of the Cocos plate beneath the North American plate along the Middle American Trench in Mexico generates large to great earthquakes every 30-100 years. (Click on arrows and slide left and right to see labels.). The Cocos Plate is a small, oceanic plate just to the west of Central America. USGS photo. Find the boundary between the North American and Cocos plates. The Coast Ranges, including the Olympic Mountains, are made of oceanic sediments and hard rocks that were caught in the vise between the converging plates, uplifted, and added to the edge of the continent. Transform boundaries are places where plates slide sideways past each other. Subduction zones form where a plate with thinner (less-buoyant) oceanic crust descends beneath a plate with thicker (more-buoyant) continental crust. Convergent boundaries, where two plates are moving toward each other, are of three types, depending on whether oceanic or continental crust is present on either side of the boundary. This situation may not continue for too much longer, however. Copalis River, Washington The colliding continental material will not be subducted because it is too light (i.e., because it is composed largely of light continental rocks [SIAL]), but the root of the oceanic plate will eventually break off and sink into the mantle. Yosemite Valley and Half Dome. It was preceded by Pannotia (600 to 540 Ma), by Rodinia (1,100 to 750 Ma), and by others before that. But unlike Mt. Plate borders the North American Plate, the South American Plate, the Nazca Plate and the Cocos Plate. The Cascadia Subduction Zone and Southern Alaska are the sites of ongoing subduction as the Pacific and Juan de Fuca plates slide beneath the North American Plate. View the full answer. Wrangell, a 14,163 foot (4,317 meter) volcano that last erupted during the early part of the 20th Century. In 1989 and 1990, Mt. The North American Plate is one of the slowest, averaging around 1 cm/y in the south up to almost 4 cm/y in the north. This plate includes all of Africa and the surrounding ocean, including the eastern Atlantic Ocean, the surrounding Antarctic Ocean, and the western Indian ocean. But if the lava spills out from beneath the ocean, it encounters cold water and hardens quickly as a pile of pillows. Colors denote depth below sea level and elevation on land. The Cocos plate was created about 23 million years ago when a larger plate broke into two pieces. The original composite volcano was about 7,000 feet (2,000 meters) high, but lost about 2,500 feet (750 meters) of its height. Modified from Beauty from the Beast: Plate Tectonics and the Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, by Robert J. Lillie, Wells Creek Publishers, 92 pp., 2015, www.amazon.com/dp/1512211893. Left image At spreading centres, the lithospheric mantle may be very thin because the upward convective motion of hot mantle material generates temperatures that are too high for the existence of a significant thickness of rigid lithosphere (Figure \(\PageIndex{8}\)). Two parallel mountain ranges commonly develop above such a subduction zone a coastal range consisting of sedimentary strata and hard rock lifted out of the sea (accretionary wedge), and a volcanic range farther inland (volcanic arc). Californias San Andreas fault is a transform boundary. Remove unwanted regions from map data QGIS. In central and southern California the ancient volcanoes have largely eroded away. Olympic National Park, Washington This map shows the boundaries between the major plates. The Pacific Northwest is an exciting place to observe geologic processes in action. Yosemite National Park, California A subduction zone will develop, and the oceanic plate will begin to descend under the continent. After a terrifying free-fall that lasted 8 minutes, the pilots finally managed to restart the engines at only 6,000 feet (2,000 meters). As the mid-ocean ridge separating the Farallon and Pacific Plates entered the subduction zone, the Farallon Plate separated into the Juan de Fuca and Cocos Plates. The LibreTexts libraries arePowered by NICE CXone Expertand are supported by the Department of Education Open Textbook Pilot Project, the UC Davis Office of the Provost, the UC Davis Library, the California State University Affordable Learning Solutions Program, and Merlot. The series of hot spots that has been identified in the Atlantic Ocean may also have existed for several hundred million years, and thus may have contributed to rifting in roughly the same place on at least two separate occasions (Figure \(\PageIndex{13}\)). Left image The eruption of Mt. Spreading rates vary considerably, from 2 cm/y to 6 cm/y in the Atlantic, to between 12 cm/y and 20 cm/y in the Pacific. Are transform boundaries continental or oceanic? Photo courtesy of Robert J. Lillie. The Caribbean plate is sandwiched between the North American and South American plates to the east and the Cocos, Nazca and North Andean plates to the west. A mid-oceanic ridge, a divergent tectonic plate boundary located along the floor of the Pacific Ocean. A continent-continent collision occurs when a continent or large island that has been moved along with subducting oceanic crust collides with another continent (Figure \(\PageIndex{8}\)). This plate is rotating in a clockwise direction towards the Pacific plate. The west side of California is moving north, and the east side is moving south. Redwood National and State Parks, California The boundary between the two plates is the Nootka Fault, which is the location of frequent small-to-medium earthquakes (roughly up to magnitude 5), as depicted by the red stars. When a series of mantle plumes exists beneath a large continent, the resulting rifts may align and lead to the formation of a rift valley (such as the present-day Great Rift Valley in eastern Africa). The rising hot water causes overlying rock to melt, generating magma that at times erupts out on the surface as lava flows and other materials forming Mt. The three West Coast states are especially meaningful because they have geologic features that, when the quarters are stacked, represent the surface and subsurface of the chain of volcanoes that has been developing over the past 200 million years. Without referring to the plate map in Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\), or any other resources, write in the names of as many of the plates as you can. Over the next 50 million years, it is likely that there will be full development of the east African rift and creation of new ocean floor. This plate is small. Compaction in the Rock Cycle: Understanding the Process Behind Sedimentary Rock Formation, Crystallization in the Water Cycle: A Fundamental Process in Water Distribution and Purification, Understanding Crystallization in the Rock Cycle: A Fundamental Process in Rock Formation, Extracting Lat/Lng from Shapefile using OGR2OGR/GDAL. Plate Tectonics and Our National ParksSite Index, Plate TectonicsThe Unifying Theory of Geology, Tectonic Settings of NPS SitesMaster List, ORCAOregon Caves National Monument, Oregon [, SEKIKings Canyon National Park, California[, YOSEYosemite National Park, California[. The initial magma formed as mantle rock melts beneath a subduction zone has low silica (basalt) composition. Modified from The Geology of our National Parks, Monuments and Seashores, by Robert J. Lillie, New York, W. W. Norton and Company, 298 pp., 2005, www.amazon.com/dp/0134905172. Shasta in California, and other Cascade Volcanoes. More recent studies of continental matchups and the magnetic ages of ocean-floor rocks have enabled us to reconstruct the history of the break-up of Pangea. North America plate, Australia plate, Antarctic plate, Nazca plate, Filipino plate, Cocos plate, Juan de Fuca plate. Accessibility StatementFor more information contact us atinfo@libretexts.org. The 1,200-kilometer-long San Andreas fault zone is part of the boundary between the Pacific and North American plates, and thus is known as a transform fault. Sites in the Sierra Nevada Mountains reveal the eroded roots of an ancient volcanic range that formed when the subduction zone extended much farther south. Trees along the Washington coast were killed by salt-water invasion when the land suddenly dropped during the last great Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake in the year 1700. This plate includes Australia and much of the surrounding ocean. Adding TravelTime as Impedance in ArcGIS Network Analyst? Off the Pacific coast, the Cocos plate is subducted beneath both the North American and Caribbean plates, which are separated by a sinistral transcurrent boundary. Some parks in the Sierra Nevada Mountains reveal igneous magma chamber rocks that represent the eroded remnants of an ancient subduction zone, when volcanoes similar to those found in the modern Cascade Mountains extended southward all the way through California. For example the Juan de Fuca Plate is actually three separate plates (Gorda, Juan de Fuca, and Explorer) that all move in the same general direction but at slightly different rates. Today Bold numbers are the years of moderately large (larger than about M7) historical earthquakes written next to their approximate location. This plate includes all of Saudi Arabia, and much of the Levant (up to Iraq and Syria). Another divergent plate boundary is the East Pacific Rise, which separates the massive Pacific plate from the Nazca, Cocos, and North American plates. Since there are convection currents in the mantle,. During the same period, the Atlantic Ocean began to open up between northern Africa and North America, and India broke away from Antarctica. It is subducting under (that is, being forced under) the South American plate. For example, the Queen Charlotte Fault connects the north end of the Juan de Fuca Ridge, starting at the north end of Vancouver Island, to the Aleutian subduction zone. The roots of ancient mountain belts, which are present along the eastern margin of North America, the western margin of Europe, and the northwestern margin of Africa, show that these land masses once collided with each other to form a mountain chain, possibly as big as the Himalayas. The addition of water to the hot mantle lowers the rockss melting point and leads to the formation of magma (flux melting) (Figure \(\PageIndex{6}\)). The types are ocean-ocean, ocean-continent, and continent-continent. Question: Tectonic Plates Use this map to answer the following questions. Igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks are all found in abundance. This is the zone where the two plates have been locked together since the last great earthquake occurred in the year 1700. Most of the igneous rocks were manufactured in the ocean and are basalt. Another, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, is a vast region that extends across the accretionary wedge and volcanic arc, and is built of accreted terranes. What are the three types of convergent plate boundaries? The same forces that shift the land so dramatically also gradually build spectacular landscapes like the coastlines of the Pacific Northwest. The eastern margins of North and South America and the western margins of Europe and Africa are called passive margins because there is no subduction taking place along them. Along this fault, the Pacific plate is moving northwestward relative to the North American plate at an approximate rate of 16.4 feet per 100 years (5 cm/year). The types are ocean-ocean, ocean-continent, and continent-continent. By 50 Ma, Australia had separated from Antarctic, and shortly after that, India collided with Asia. Error message | View complete answer on https://www.britannica.com Are the Nazca Plate and South American plates divergent plates? Many transform boundaries are found on the sea floor, where they connect segments of diverging mid-ocean ridges. Beginning about 30 million years ago, so much of the Farallon Plate was consumed by subduction that the Pacific and North American plates were in contact, forming the San Andreas transform plate boundary in western California. Ranger Jens Oreo Demo The southern boundary is a mid-oceanic ridge, the Galapagos Rise. Roughly 3.2 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) in area, the Caribbean. Cocos Plate; Type: Minor: Approximate area: 2,900,000 km 2: Movement 1: north-east: Speed 1: 67 mm/year: . Mazama, erupted and collapsed 7,700 years ago, forming the large cavity (caldera) that now holds Crater Lake. The distribution and depths of earthquakes in the Caribbean and Central America area are shown in Figure 11.2.3. What are the 4 types of plate boundaries? NPS photo. The western part of California (including Los Angeles and part of San Francisco) will split away from the rest of North America, and eventually sail right by the west coast of Vancouver Island, en route to Alaska. As a result of this collision, the oceanic Cocos plate is subducted below the Caribbean along the Mesoamerican trench plate at speeds ranging from 2 in.