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The fracture zones of the Chile Rise trend in a west to east fashion with the most southern ones taking a slightly more southwest to northeast orientation. This non-perpendicular relation to Chile's coast reflects the oblique subduction of Nazca plate under southern Chile.
In actual usage, many transform faults aligned with fracture zones are often loosely referred to as "fracture zones" although technically, they are not. They can be associated with other tectonic features and may be subducted or distorted by later tectonic activity. They are usually defined with bathymetric, gravity and magnetic studies.
This is a list of tectonic plates on Earth's surface. Tectonic plates are pieces of Earth's crust and uppermost mantle , together referred to as the lithosphere . The plates are around 100 km (62 mi) thick and consist of two principal types of material: oceanic crust (also called sima from silicon and magnesium ) and continental crust ( sial ...
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 causes the oceanic plate to buckle and usually results in a new mid-ocean ridge forming and turning the obduction into subduction. [citation needed]
Most oceanic spreading centers are not in the middle of their hosting ocean basis but regardless, are traditionally called mid-ocean ridges. Mid-ocean ridges around the globe are linked by plate tectonic boundaries and the trace of the ridges across the ocean floor appears similar to the seam of a baseball. The mid-ocean ridge system thus is ...
Extensional tectonics is associated with the stretching and thinning of the crust or the lithosphere.This type of tectonics is found at divergent plate boundaries, in continental rifts, during and after a period of continental collision caused by the lateral spreading of the thickened crust formed, at releasing bends in strike-slip faults, in back-arc basins, and on the continental end of ...
Plate tectonics (from Latin tectonicus, from Ancient Greek τεκτονικός (tektonikós) 'pertaining to building') [1] is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago.
Thrust faults are characteristic of areas where the Earth's crust is being compressed by tectonic forces. [11] Megathrust faults occur where two tectonic plates collide. When one of the plates is composed of oceanic lithosphere, it dives beneath the other plate (called the overriding plate) and sinks into the Earth's mantle as a slab.