enow.com Web Search

Search results

  1. Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
  2. Lithosphere - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithosphere

    Oceanic lithosphere consists mainly of mafic crust and ultramafic mantle and is denser than continental lithosphere. Young oceanic lithosphere, found at mid-ocean ridges, is no thicker than the crust, but oceanic lithosphere thickens as it ages and moves away from the mid-ocean ridge. The oldest oceanic lithosphere is typically about 140 ...

  3. Oceanic crust - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_crust

    The subduction process consumes older oceanic lithosphere, so oceanic crust is seldom more than 200 million years old. [20] The process of super-continent formation and destruction via repeated cycles of creation and destruction of oceanic crust is known as the Wilson Cycle .

  4. List of tectonic plates - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tectonic_plates

    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)

  5. Seafloor spreading - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seafloor_spreading

    Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading. (The rate at which new oceanic lithosphere is added to each tectonic plate on either side of a mid-ocean ridge is the spreading half-rate and is equal to half of the spreading rate). Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast, intermediate, or slow.

  6. Mid-ocean ridge - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-ocean_ridge

    The oceanic lithosphere is formed at an oceanic ridge, while the lithosphere is subducted back into the asthenosphere at ocean trenches. Two processes, ridge-push and slab pull , are thought to be responsible for spreading at mid-ocean ridges. [ 24 ]

  7. Lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithosphere–asthenosphere...

    Age of oceanic lithosphere. Beneath oceanic crust, the LAB ranges anywhere from 50 to 140 km in depth, except close to mid-ocean ridges where the LAB is no deeper than the depth of the new crust being created. [10] Seismic evidence shows that oceanic plates do thicken with age. This suggests that the LAB underneath oceanic lithosphere also ...

  8. Seafloor depth versus age - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seafloor_depth_versus_age

    In all models, oceanic lithosphere is continuously formed at a constant rate at the mid-ocean ridges. The source of the lithosphere has a half-plane shape (x = 0, z < 0) and a constant temperature T 1. Due to its continuous creation, the lithosphere at x > 0 is moving away from the ridge at a constant velocity , which is assumed large compared ...

  9. Continental collision - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_collision

    Subduction involves the whole lithosphere, the density of which is largely controlled by the nature of the crust it carries. Oceanic crust is thin (~6 km thick) and dense (about 3.3 g/cm 3), consisting of basalt, gabbro, and peridotite. Consequently, most oceanic crust is subducted easily at an oceanic trench.