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The main cause of the rise of the Andes is the compression of the western rim of the South American Plate due to the subduction of the Nazca Plate and the Antarctic Plate. To the east, the Andes range is bounded by several sedimentary basins , such as the Orinoco Basin , the Amazon Basin , the Madre de Dios Basin, and the Gran Chaco , that ...
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 ...
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami was triggered by a megathrust earthquake along the convergent boundary of the Indian plate and Burma microplate and killed over 200,000 people. The 2011 tsunami off the coast of Japan , which caused 16,000 deaths and did US$360 billion in damage, was caused by a magnitude 9 megathrust earthquake ...
The eastern margin is a convergent boundary subduction zone under the South American plate and the Andes Mountains, forming the Peru–Chile Trench.The southern side is a divergent boundary with the Antarctic plate, the Chile Rise, where seafloor spreading permits magma to rise.
Magmatism in island arc regions comes from the interplay of the subducting plate and the mantle wedge, the wedge-shaped region between the subducting and overriding plates. [16] The presence of convergent margins dominated by andesite is so characteristic of the Earth's unique plate tectonics that the Earth has been described as an "andesite ...
Map showing Earth's principal tectonic plates and their boundaries in detail. 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)
Where the plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of plate boundary (or fault): convergent, divergent, or transform. The relative movement of the plates typically ranges from zero to 10 cm annually. [5] Faults tend to be geologically active, experiencing earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation.
The South Volcanic Zone (SVZ) extends roughly from Central Chile's Andes at the latitude of Santiago, at ca. 33°S, to Cerro Arenales in Aysén Region at ca. 46°S, a distance of well over 870 mi (1,400 km). The arc has formed due to the subduction of the Nazca plate under the South American plate along the Peru–Chile Trench.