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Surface map of oceanic crust showing the generation of younger (red) crust and eventual destruction of older (blue) crust. This demonstrates the crustal spatial evolution at the Earth's surface dictated by plate tectonics. Earth's crustal evolution involves the formation, destruction and renewal of the rocky outer shell at that planet's surface.
The Vine–Matthews–Morley hypothesis, also known as the Morley–Vine–Matthews hypothesis, was the first key scientific test of the seafloor spreading theory of continental drift and plate tectonics. Its key impact was that it allowed the rates of plate motions at mid-ocean ridges to be computed.
Subduction is the density-driven process by which one tectonic plate moves under another and sinks into the mantle at a convergent boundary.Gravitational pull from dense slabs provides approximately 90% of the driving force for plate tectonics, [2] and consequently subduction is crucial in changing the Earth's layout, guiding its thermal evolution [3] and building its compositional structure. [1]
Plate tectonics (from Latin tectonicus, from Ancient Greek τεκτονικός (tektonikós) 'pertaining to building') [1] is the scientific theory that Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago.
Marine geological studies were of extreme importance in providing the critical evidence for sea floor spreading and plate tectonics in the years following World War II. The deep ocean floor is the last essentially unexplored frontier and detailed mapping in support of economic ( petroleum and metal mining ), natural disaster mitigation, and ...
Conventional plate-tectonic hypotheses differ in detail, but since the 1980s most have assumed that Earth has operated in a plate-tectonic mode, with plume-based whole-mantle convection driven by an eternally hot core, for at least 3 b.y., and that this convection has kept the mantle stirred and mostly unfractionated.
Geological evidence of rocks younger than 59 Ma and deposited on top of the turbidite sequence can be considered as indicators to reconstruct tectonic evolution after collision had begun. Various evidence documented along NE-SW and NW-SE sections of the India–Asia collision zone synchronize with each other, being in favour of a "one-off ...
A triple junction is the point where three tectonic plates meet; the boundaries of these plates are characterized by divergence, causing a rift zone or spreading center; a transform fault; or convergence causing subduction or uplift of crust and forming mountains.