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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)
Depth of oceanic trenches seems to be controlled by age of the oceanic lithosphere being subducted. [5] Sediment fill in oceanic trenches varies and generally depends on abundance of sediment input from surrounding areas. An oceanic trench, the Mariana Trench, is the deepest point of the ocean at a depth of approximately 11,000 m (36,089 ft).
Obduction zones occurs when the continental plate is pushed under the oceanic plate, but this is unusual as the relative densities of the tectonic plates favours subduction of the oceanic plate. This causes the oceanic plate to buckle and usually results in a new mid-ocean ridge forming and turning the obduction into subduction. [citation needed]
Oceanic crust is formed at an oceanic ridge, while the lithosphere is subducted back into the asthenosphere at trenches. Oceanic trenches are prominent, long, narrow topographic depressions of the ocean floor. They are typically 50 to 100 kilometers (30 to 60 mi) wide and 3 to 4 km (1.9 to 2.5 mi) below the level of the surrounding oceanic ...
The age of the oceanic crust can be used to estimate the (thermal) thickness of the lithosphere, where young oceanic crust has not had enough time to cool the mantle beneath it, while older oceanic crust has thicker mantle lithosphere beneath it. [19] The oceanic lithosphere subducts at what are known as convergent boundaries. These boundaries ...
Tectonic plates are composed of the oceanic lithosphere and the thicker continental lithosphere, each topped by its own kind of crust. Along convergent plate boundaries , the process of subduction carries the edge of one plate down under the other plate and into the mantle .
Oceanic lithosphere consists mainly of mafic crust and ultramafic mantle and is denser than continental lithosphere. Young oceanic lithosphere, found at mid-ocean ridges, is no thicker than the crust, but oceanic lithosphere thickens as it ages and moves away from the mid-ocean ridge. The oldest oceanic lithosphere is typically about 140 ...
As a consequence, a powerful source generating plate motion is the excess density of the oceanic lithosphere sinking in subduction zones. When the new crust forms at mid-ocean ridges, this oceanic lithosphere is initially less dense than the underlying asthenosphere, but it becomes denser with age as it conductively cools and thickens.