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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.
Slab suction is one of the four main forces that drive plate tectonics. It creates a force that pulls down plates as they are subducting and speeds up their movement, creating larger amounts of displacement. It is because of these forces, slab pull, ridge push, mantle convection, and slab suction that the
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 ...
One of the generally agreed [1] requirements for a life-sustaining planet is a mobile, fractured lithosphere cyclically recycled into a vigorously convecting mantle, in a process commonly known as plate tectonics. Plate tectonics provide a means of geochemical regulation of atmospheric particulates, as well as removal of carbon from the atmosphere.
Tectonic uplift is the geologic uplift of Earth's surface that is attributed to plate tectonics. While isostatic response is important, an increase in the mean elevation of a region can only occur in response to tectonic processes of crustal thickening (such as mountain building events), changes in the density distribution of the crust and ...
Movements of tectonic plates create volcanoes along the plate boundaries, which erupt and form mountains. A volcanic arc system is a series of volcanoes that form near a subduction zone where the crust of a sinking oceanic plate melts and drags water down with the subducting crust. [9] The Dome of Vitosha mountain next to Sofia
Tectonophysics is concerned with movements in the Earth's crust and deformations over scales from meters to thousands of kilometers. [2] These govern processes on local and regional scales and at structural boundaries, such as the destruction of continental crust (e.g. gravitational instability) and oceanic crust (e.g. subduction), convection in the Earth's mantle (availability of melts), the ...
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]