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They develop in response to tensional tectonics due to rifting of an existing island arc. Benioff zone or Wadati-Benioff zone: This is a plane that dips under the overriding plate where intense volcanic activity occurs, which is defined by the location of seismic events below the arc. Earthquakes occur from near surface to ~660 km depth.
Convergent boundaries are areas where plates move toward each other and collide. These are also known as compressional or destructive boundaries. Obduction zones occurs when the continental plate is pushed under the oceanic plate, but this is unusual as the relative densities of the tectonic plates favours subduction of the oceanic plate. This ...
Simplified diagram of a convergent boundary. A convergent boundary (also known as a destructive boundary) is an area on Earth where two or more lithospheric plates collide. One plate eventually slides beneath the other, a process known as subduction. The subduction zone can be defined by a plane where many earthquakes occur, called the Wadati ...
The magma ascends to form an arc of volcanoes parallel to the subduction zone. Volcanic arcs are distinct from volcanic chains formed over hotspots in the middle of a tectonic plate. Volcanoes often form one after another as the plate moves over the hotspot, and so the volcanoes progress in age from one end of the chain to the other.
Map showing the divergent plate boundaries (oceanic spreading ridges) and recent sub-aerial volcanoes (mostly at convergent boundaries) According to the theory of plate tectonics, Earth's lithosphere, its rigid outer shell, is broken into sixteen larger and several smaller plates.
Indo-Australian plate – Major tectonic plate formed by the fusion of the Indian and Australian plates (sometimes considered to be two separate tectonic plates) – 58,900,000 km 2 (22,700,000 sq mi) Australian plate – Major tectonic plate separated from Indo-Australian plate about 3 million years ago – 47,000,000 km 2 (18,000,000 sq mi)
Volcanoes resulting from divergent tectonic activity are usually non-explosive whereas those resulting from convergent tectonic activity cause violent eruptions. Volcanoes can also form where there is stretching and thinning of the crust's plates, such as in the East African Rift , the Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field , and the Rio Grande ...
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.