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Some use the term "transform fault" to describe the seismically and tectonically active portion of a fracture zone after John Tuzo Wilson's concepts first developed with respect to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. [2] The term fracture zone has a distinct geological meaning, but it is also used more loosely in the naming of some oceanic features.
The Indus-Yarlung suture zone or the Indus-Yarlung Tsangpo suture is a tectonic suture in southern Tibet and across the north margin of the Himalayas which resulted from the collision between the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate starting about 52 Ma. [1] The north side of the suture zone is the Ladakh Batholith of the Karakoram-Lhasa Block.
Geologists generally agree that the following tectonic plates currently exist on Earth's surface with roughly definable boundaries. Tectonic plates are sometimes subdivided into three fairly arbitrary categories: major (or primary) plates, minor (or secondary) plates, and microplates (or tertiary plates).
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. Tectonic plates are composed of the oceanic lithosphere and the thicker continental lithosphere, each topped by its own kind of crust.
The presumed seismically and tectonically active portion of this fracture zone is known as the Heirtzler transform fault and divides a portion of the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge where spreading rates increase towards its axial north from 56 to 66 mm (2.2 to 2.6 in)/year over a distance of 650 km (400 mi). [3]
Tectonic subsidence is the sinking of the Earth's crust on a large scale, relative to crustal-scale features or the geoid. [1] The movement of crustal plates and accommodation spaces produced by faulting [2] brought about subsidence on a large scale in a variety of environments, including passive margins, aulacogens, fore-arc basins, foreland basins, intercontinental basins and pull-apart basins.
The modern day rate of convergence between the Indian and Eurasian plates is measured to be approximately 17 mm/yr. [21] This convergence is accommodated through seismic activity in active fault zones. As a result, the Himalayan range is one of the most seismically active regions in the world.
A detachment fault is a gently dipping normal fault associated with large-scale extensional tectonics. [1] Detachment faults often have very large displacements (tens of km) and juxtapose unmetamorphosed hanging walls against medium to high-grade metamorphic footwalls that are called metamorphic core complexes .