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This article describes techniques; for a history of the movement of tectonic plates, see Geological history of Earth.. Plate reconstruction is the process of reconstructing the positions of tectonic plates relative to each other (relative motion) or to other reference frames, such as the Earth's magnetic field or groups of hotspots, in the geological past.
GPlates enables both the visualization and the manipulation of plate-tectonic reconstructions and associated data through geological time: Load and save geological, geographic and tectonic feature data. Assign feature data to tectonic plates. Reconstruct feature data to past geological times. Query and edit feature properties and geometries.
Müller also used reconstructions of the age-area distribution of the ocean basins to demonstrate that long-term sea-level variations over 100 metres in amplitude have been driven by plate tectonics and changing ocean basin volumes (Science, 2008).
Tectonic plate reconstructions [ edit ] Consideration of the Earth system interactions requires complete tectonic reconstruction of all plate motions through time for the studied area, which are often not widely agreed upon, to create a framework within which Earth system interactions can be investigated.
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. Faults tend to be geologically active, experiencing earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation.
[5] During the 1980s, Smith collaborated with Fred Vine and Roy Livermore, [18] the author of The Tectonic Plates Are Moving! (Oxford University Press, 2018). [19] In 2003 Smith and co-author Kevin T. Pickering, proposed a unifying explanation for Earth's icehouse periods during the past 620 million years. [20]
A map of the Juan de Fuca plate with noted seismic incidents, including the 2001 Nisqually earthquake. The Juan de Fuca plate is bounded on the south by the Blanco fracture zone (running northwest off the coast of Oregon), on the north by the Nootka Fault (running southwest off Nootka Island, near Vancouver Island, British Columbia) and along the west by the Pacific plate (which covers most of ...
Oblique subduction is a form of subduction (i.e. a tectonic process involving the convergence of two plates where the denser plate descends into Earth's interior) [2] for which the convergence direction differs from 90° to the plate boundary. [3]