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The Pacific Ocean is also an active, shrinking oceanic basin, even though it has both spreading ridge and oceanic trenches. Perhaps the best example of an inactive oceanic basin is the Gulf of Mexico, which formed in Jurassic times and has been doing nothing but collecting sediments since then. [ 15 ]
A flat or very gently sloping area on the floor of a deep ocean basin. absolute dating The process of determining a specific date (in years or some other unit of time) for an archaeological, geological or paleontological site or artifact. accident A sudden discontinuity of ground, such as a fault of great thickness, bed or lentil of unstable ...
The extension, a back-arc basin, generates oceanic crust: ophiolites. Finally, when the oceanic lithosphere is entirely subducted, the island arc complex's extensional regime becomes compressional. The hot, positively buoyant ocean crust from the extension will not subduct, instead obducting onto the island arc as an ophiolite.
The first discovered mid-ocean ridge was the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is a spreading center that bisects the North and South Atlantic basins; hence the origin of the name 'mid-ocean ridge'. Most oceanic spreading centers are not in the middle of their hosting ocean basis but regardless, are traditionally called mid-ocean ridges.
Rifting may lead to continental breakup and formation of oceanic basins. Successful rifting leads to seafloor spreading along a mid-oceanic ridge and a set of conjugate margins separated by an oceanic basin. [14] Rifting may be active, and controlled by mantle convection. It may also be passive, and driven by far-field tectonic forces that ...
Marine geology or geological oceanography is the study of the history and structure of the ocean floor. It involves geophysical, geochemical, sedimentological and paleontological investigations of the ocean floor and coastal zone. Marine geology has strong ties to geophysics and to physical oceanography.
Structural basin: a syncline-like depression; a region of tectonic downwarping as a result of isostasy (the Hawaiian Trough is an example) or subduction (such as the Chilean Central Valley). Graben or rift valley: fallen and typically linear depressions or basins created by rifting in a region under tensional tectonic forces.
Oceanic, volcanic island arc; Continental volcanic arc and cordilleran orogen; Adjacent continental masses located along strike (such as Barbados). Material transported into the trench by gravity sliding and debris flow from the forearc ridge (olistostrome) Piggy-back basins, which are small basins located in surface depression on the ...