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Slab pull is a geophysical mechanism whereby the cooling and subsequent densifying of a subducting tectonic plate produces a downward force along the rest of the plate. In 1975 Forsyth and Uyeda used the inverse theory method to show that, of the many forces likely to be driving plate motion, slab pull was the strongest. [1]
This paradoxically results in divergence which was only incorporated in the theory of plate tectonics in 1970, but still results in net destruction when summed over major plate boundaries. [2] Divergent boundaries are areas where plates move away from each other, forming either mid-ocean ridges or rift valleys. These are also known as ...
Both types of fault are strike-slip or side-to-side in movement; nevertheless, transform faults always end at a junction with another plate boundary, while transcurrent faults may die out without a junction with another fault. Finally, transform faults form a tectonic plate boundary, while transcurrent faults do not.
However, in 2007, two independent teams of researchers came to opposing conclusions about the likelihood of plate tectonics on larger super-Earths [114] [115] with one team saying that plate tectonics would be episodic or stagnant [116] and the other team saying that plate tectonics is very likely on super-earths even if the planet is dry.
Tectonic plate interactions – Movements of Earth's lithosphere Continental drift – Movement of Earth's continents relative to each other; Convergent boundary – Region of active deformation between colliding tectonic plates; Divergent boundary – Linear feature that exists between two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other
They are a consequence of plate tectonics. Lithospheric plates on either side of an active transform fault move in opposite directions; here, strike-slip activity occurs. Fracture zones extend past the transform faults, away from the ridge axis; are usually seismically inactive (because both plate segments are moving in the same direction ...
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 ...
Accretionary prisms grow in two ways. The first is by frontal accretion, in which sediments are scraped off the downgoing plate and emplaced at the front of the accretionary prism. [ 2 ] As the accretionary wedge grows, older sediments further from the trench become increasingly lithified , and faults and other structural features are steepened ...