Convergent boundaries
are areas where plates move toward each other and collide. These are also known as compressional or destructive boundaries. Subduction zones occur where an oceanic plate meets a continental plate and is pushed underneath it.
What is it called when two plate boundaries are moving towards each other?
Convergent (Colliding)
: This occurs when plates move towards each other and collide. When a continental plate meets an oceanic plate, the thinner, denser, and more flexible oceanic plate sinks beneath the thicker, more rigid continental plate. This is called subduction.
What are the 4 ways plates move?
- Divergent: extensional; the plates move apart. Spreading ridges, basin-range.
- Convergent: compressional; plates move toward each other. Includes: Subduction zones and mountain building.
- Transform: shearing; plates slide past each other. Strike-slip motion.
What causes the plates to move?
The heat from radioactive processes within the planet’s interior
causes the plates to move, sometimes toward and sometimes away from each other. This movement is called plate motion, or tectonic shift.
What two plates are moving towards each other?
When two plate move towards each other they converge or come together. The collision between two plates that are moving towards each other is called a
convergent boundary
.
What will happens when two oceanic plates move towards each other?
When two plates move towards each other, the boundary is known as
a convergent boundary
. … When two oceanic plates converge, the denser plate will end up sinking below the less dense plate, leading to the formation of an oceanic subduction zone.
How did you classify the three types of plate boundaries What was your basis?
The movement of the plates creates three types of tectonic boundaries:
convergent, where plates move into one another; divergent, where plates move apart
; and transform, where plates move sideways in relation to each other.
What two interacting plates from the transform fault boundary?
The San Andreas Fault and Queen Charlotte Fault
are transform plate boundaries developing where the Pacific Plate moves northward past the North American Plate. The San Andreas Fault is just one of several faults that accommodate the transform motion between the Pacific and North American plates.
How fast do tectonic plates move?
They can move at
rates of up to four inches (10 centimeters) per year
, but most move much slower than that. Different parts of a plate move at different speeds. The plates move in different directions, colliding, moving away from, and sliding past one another. Most plates are made of both oceanic and continental crust.
What happens when two plates collide?
If two tectonic plates collide, they form
a convergent plate boundary
. Usually, one of the converging plates will move beneath the other, a process known as subduction. … The new magma (molten rock) rises and may erupt violently to form volcanoes, often building arcs of islands along the convergent boundary.
What are the 3 causes of plate movement?
Mantle dynamics, gravity, and Earth’s rotation taken
altogether causes the plate movements. However, convectional currents are the general thought for the motion.
What is the fastest moving plate?
Rates of motion
These average rates of plate separations can range widely. The Arctic Ridge has the slowest rate (less than 2.5 cm/yr), and
the East Pacific Rise near Easter Island, in the South Pacific about
3,400 km west of Chile, has the fastest rate (more than 15 cm/yr).
Are Continents still moving?
Today, we know that the continents rest on massive slabs of rock called tectonic plates. The plates are always moving and interacting in a process called plate tectonics.
The continents are still moving today
. … The two continents are moving away from each other at the rate of about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) per year.
How do we know that the plates are moving?
The most obvious manifestation of moving plates are
earthquakes
. … It is possible to use laser ranging surveys across parts of plate boundaries on land (for example the strands of the San Andreas Fault system in California) which can detect the few cm a year movement.
What happens when two plates rub against each other as they move in opposite directions?
Plates grinding past each other in opposite directions create
faults called transform faults
. Powerful earthquakes often strike along these boundaries. … The earthquakes and the volcanic eruptions along the Mid-Ocean Ridges are a direct result of this process.
What is the basis of classifying the plate boundaries?
According to
plate tectonic theory
, the lithosphere is divided into rigid plates that interact with one another at their boundaries. Earthquakes, faults, and folds take place at these boundaries. Voluminous igneous intrusions and frequent volcanic eruptions occur at two of the major types of plate boundaries.
