What features would you expect to find at an ocean-continent convergent plate boundary? How do the lithospheric plates move at a transform margin? Give an example of a present day transform margin.
A)
A continent's crust may collide with the oceanic crust. Because the oceanic plate is denser, it subducts. The oceanic plate is sinking beneath the continent. This happens in an ocean trench. Subduction occurs in subduction zones. As you might expect, plate collisions result in several powerful earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. As it reenters the mantle, the subducting oceanic plate melts. The magma rises to the surface and erupts. This results in a volcanic mountain range near the continent's coast. A continental arc is the name for this range. The Andes Mountains are a volcanic arc that runs along the western boundary of South America.
B)
A transform-fault boundary, or simply a transform boundary, is the zone between two plates sliding horizontally past one another. J. Tuzo Wilson, a Canadian geophysicist, hypothesized that transform faults are major faults or fracture zones that connect two spreading centers (divergent plate borders) or, less usually, trenches (convergent plate boundaries). On the ocean floor, the majority of transform faults can be located. They are usually defined by shallow earthquakes and offset the active spreading ridges, resulting in zig-zag plate boundaries. The East Pacific Rise, a divergent barrier to the south, is connected to the South Gorda—Juan de Fuca—Explorer Ridge, a divergent boundary to the north, by this transform fault. Strike-slip faults are what transforms are. There is no vertical movement; only horizontal movement is possible.
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