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The North American plate is a tectonic plate containing most of North America, Cuba, the Bahamas, extreme northeastern Asia, and parts of Iceland and the Azores.With an area of 76 million km 2 (29 million sq mi), it is the Earth's second largest tectonic plate, behind the Pacific plate (which borders the plate to the west).
The regional geology of North America usually encompasses the geographic regions of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, the continental United States, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. [1] The parts of the North American Plate that are not occupied by North American countries are usually not discussed as part of the regional geology.
Tectonic subsidence is the sinking of the Earth's crust on a large scale, relative to crustal-scale features or the geoid. [1] The movement of crustal plates and accommodation spaces produced by faulting [2] brought about subsidence on a large scale in a variety of environments, including passive margins, aulacogens, fore-arc basins, foreland basins, intercontinental basins and pull-apart basins.
The Queen Charlotte Fault on the Pacific Northwest coast of North America; The Motagua Fault, which crosses through Guatemala, is a transform boundary between the southern edge of the North American plate and the northern edge of the Caribbean plate. New Zealand's Alpine Fault is another active transform boundary.
Where the plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of plate boundary (or fault): convergent, divergent, or transform. The relative movement of the plates typically ranges from zero to 10 cm annually. [5] Faults tend to be geologically active, experiencing earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation.
Tectonic map of Alaska and northwestern Canada showing main faults and historic earthquakes. The Queen Charlotte Fault is an active transform fault that marks the boundary of the North American plate and the Pacific plate. [1] [2] It is Canada's right-lateral strike-slip equivalent to the San Andreas Fault to the south in California. [3]
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Plate tectonics (from Latin tectonicus, from Ancient Greek τεκτονικός (tektonikós) 'pertaining to building') is the scientific theory that Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago.