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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 ...
The mechanisms of plate tectonics on icy moons, particularly Earth-like plate tectonics are not widely agreed upon or well understood. [109] Plate tectonics on Earth is hypothesized to be driven by “slab pull,” where the sinking of the more dense subducting plate provides the spreading force for mid-ocean ridges. [109] “
The study of diastrophism encompasses the varying responses of the crust to tectonic stresses. These responses include linear or torsional horizontal movements (such as continental drift) and vertical subsidence and uplift of the lithosphere (strain) in response to natural stresses on Earth's surface such as the weight of mountains, lakes, and ...
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 ...
Mountain formation refers to the geological processes that underlie the formation of mountains. These processes are associated with large-scale movements of the Earth's crust (tectonic plates). [1] Folding, faulting, volcanic activity, igneous intrusion and metamorphism can all be parts of the orogenic process of mountain building. [2]
Geodynamics is a subfield of geophysics dealing with dynamics of the Earth.It applies physics, chemistry and mathematics to the understanding of how mantle convection leads to plate tectonics and geologic phenomena such as seafloor spreading, mountain building, volcanoes, earthquakes, faulting.
At the consumption edges of the plate, the material has thermally contracted to become dense, and it sinks under its own weight in the process of subduction usually at an oceanic trench. Subduction is the descending component of mantle convection. [5] This subducted material sinks through the Earth's interior.
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 ...