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Science & Tech. Shopping. Sports. ... forming plateaus. ... wave” in the Earth’s mantle—that rocky layer between the crust and the core—that removes layers of rock from continental ...
Satellite image of the Tibetan Plateau between the Himalayan mountains to the south and the Taklamakan Desert to the north. In geology and physical geography, a plateau (/ p l ə ˈ t oʊ, p l æ ˈ t oʊ, ˈ p l æ t oʊ /; French:; pl.: plateaus or plateaux), [1] [2] also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the ...
Kerguelen Plateau – Oceanic plateau in the southern Indian Ocean; Laramidia – Island continent that existed until the end of the Late Cretaceous period; Laurentia – Craton forming the geological core of North America; Mauritia (microcontinent) – A Precambrian microcontinent that broke away as India and Madagascar separated
Map showing Earth's principal tectonic plates and their boundaries in detail. These plates comprise the bulk of the continents and the Pacific Ocean.For purposes of this list, a major plate is any plate with an area greater than 20 million km 2 (7.7 million sq mi)
Major continental divides, showing drainage into the major oceans and seas of the world. Grey areas are endorheic basins that do not drain to the ocean.. A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...
In geology, a continent is defined by continental crust, which is a platform of metamorphic and igneous rocks, largely of granitic composition. Continental crust is less dense and much thicker than oceanic crust, which causes it to "float" higher than oceanic crust on the dense underlying mantle. This explains why the continents form high ...
Continental shelves teem with life because of the sunlight available in shallow waters, in contrast to the biotic desert of the oceans' abyssal plain. The pelagic (water column) environment of the continental shelf constitutes the neritic zone, and the benthic (sea floor) province of the shelf is the sublittoral zone. [35]
The continental crust also includes northwestern New Zealand, New Caledonia and Fiji. The oceanic crust includes the southeast Indian Ocean , the Tasman Sea , and the Timor Sea . The Australian plate is bordered (clockwise) by the Eurasian plate , the Philippine plate , the Pacific plate , the Antarctic plate , the African plate and the Indian ...