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Manus Plate
The Manus Plate is a 100-km microplate located northeast of New Guinea. The Manus Plate was formed in between the North Bismark Plate and the South Bismark Plate. The Manus Plate currently rotates counter-clockwise in the Melanesia area. Formation The Manus Plate formed during the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal, making its maximum age approximately 781,000 years old. The Manus Plate formed in-between and on top of the transform boundaries that were separating the North and South Bismark plates. The plate was formed of young mid-ocean ridge basalt, along with pieces of older oceanic floor that had broken off of the South Bismarck plate. Boundaries and Movement The north and northeast boundaries of the Manus Plate, with the North Bismark and Pacific plates are both convergent boundaries. The plates southeast borders of the South Bismark plate is a divergent boundary. The southwest boundary bordering the South Bismark plate is a transform boundary A transform fault or transfo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Tectonic Plates
This is a list of tectonic plates on Earth's surface. Tectonic plates are pieces of Earth's crust and uppermost mantle, together referred to as the lithosphere. The plates are around thick and consist of two principal types of material: oceanic crust (also called '' sima'' from silicon and magnesium) and continental crust (''sial'' from silicon and aluminium). The composition of the two types of crust differs markedly, with mafic basaltic rocks dominating oceanic crust, while continental crust consists principally of lower-density felsic granitic rocks. Current plates Geologists generally agree that the following tectonic plates currently exist on Earth's surface with roughly definable boundaries. Tectonic plates are sometimes subdivided into three fairly arbitrary categories: ''major'' (or ''primary'') ''plates'', ''minor'' (or ''secondary'') ''plates'', and ''microplates'' (or ''tertiary plates''). Major plates These plates comprise the bulk of the continents an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Oceania in the west and the Americas in the east. At in area (as defined with a southern Antarctic border), this largest division of the World Ocean—and, in turn, the hydrosphere—covers about 46% of Earth's water surface and about 32% of its total surface area, larger than Earth's entire land area combined .Pacific Ocean . '' Britannica Concise.'' 2008: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. The centers of both the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres Strait, though both landmasses lie on the same continental shelf. Numerous smaller islands are located to the west and east. The eastern half of the island is the major land mass of the independent state of Papua New Guinea. The western half, known as Western New Guinea, forms a part of Indonesia and is organized as the provinces of Papua, Central Papua, Highland Papua, South Papua, Southwest Papua, and West Papua. The largest cities on the island are Jayapura (capital of Papua, Indonesia) and Port Moresby (capital of Papua New Guinea). Names The island has been known by various names: The name ''Papua'' was used to refer to parts of the island before contact with the West. Its etymology is unclear; one theory states that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Bismarck Plate
The North Bismarck Plate is a small tectonic plate located in the Bismarck Sea off the northeast coast of New Guinea. Tectonics To the north it collides with the Pacific Plate and the Caroline Plate, part of the western part subducts under the Woodlark Plate of New Guinea, and it is separated from the South Bismarck Plate by a divergent boundary called Bismarck Seismic Sea Lineation (BSSL). The plate is moving easterly along with the Pacific plate. It is in a very seismically active area. Between the plate and the Caroline Plate is the Manus Trench Manus Trench is an oceanic trench in the Bismarck Sea north of Papua New Guinea delineating the plate tectonic boundary between the Caroline Caroline may refer to: People *Caroline (given name), a feminine given name * J. C. Caroline (born 1933), ... and between the plate and the Pacific plate is the Kilinailai Trench. See also * List of earthquakes in Papua New Guinea References * Tectonic plates Geology of the Pacif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Bismarck Plate
The South Bismarck Plate is a small tectonic plate located in the southern Bismarck Sea. The eastern part of New Guinea and the island of New Britain are on this plate. Tectonics Convergent boundaries line the southern border including the subduction zone responsible for the formation of New Britain and the Solomon Islands. Many earthquakes occur in this area particularly around New Britain. GPS data shows the South Bismarck plate, though north of the Australian plate boundary, is being pushed by Australia in a northerly direction while the North Bismarck Plate is being dragged by the Pacific plate easterly. The line delineating the two is called the Bismarck Seismic Sea Lineation (BSSL), and it is not known where this line ends on the West side towards New Ireland. See also *List of earthquakes in Papua New Guinea Earthquakes in Papua New Guinea are due to its location near the geologically-active Pacific Ring of Fire. Overall, the population in this region resides in str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brunhes–Matuyama Reversal
The Brunhes–Matuyama reversal, named after Bernard Brunhes and Motonori Matuyama, was a geologic event, approximately 781,000 years ago, when the Earth's magnetic field last underwent reversal. Estimations vary as to the abruptness of the reversal. A 2004 paper estimated that it took over several thousand years; a 2010 paper estimated that it occurred more quickly, perhaps within a human lifetime; a 2019 paper estimated that the reversal lasted 22,000 years. The apparent duration at any particular location can vary by an order of magnitude, depending on geomagnetic latitude and local effects of non-dipole components of the Earth's field during the transition. The Brunhes–Matuyama reversal is a marker for the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) defining the base of the Chibanian Stage and Middle Pleistocene Subseries at the Chiba section, Japan, which was officially ratified in 2020 by the International Union of Geological Sciences. It is useful in dating oc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transform Fault
A transform fault or transform boundary, is a fault along a plate boundary where the motion is predominantly horizontal. It ends abruptly where it connects to another plate boundary, either another transform, a spreading ridge, or a subduction zone. A transform fault is a special case of a '' strike-slip fault'' that also forms a plate boundary. Most such faults are found in oceanic crust, where they accommodate the lateral offset between segments of divergent boundaries, forming a zigzag pattern. This is a result of oblique seafloor spreading where the direction of motion is not perpendicular to the trend of the overall divergent boundary. A smaller number of such faults are found on land, although these are generally better-known, such as the San Andreas Fault and North Anatolian Fault. Nomenclature Transform boundaries are also known as conservative plate boundaries because they involve no addition or loss of lithosphere at the Earth's surface. Background Geophy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convergent Boundary
A convergent boundary (also known as a destructive boundary) is an area on Earth where two or more lithospheric plates collide. One plate eventually slides beneath the other, a process known as subduction. The subduction zone can be defined by a plane where many earthquakes occur, called the Wadati–Benioff zone. These collisions happen on scales of millions to tens of millions of years and can lead to volcanism, earthquakes, orogenesis, destruction of lithosphere, and deformation. Convergent boundaries occur between oceanic-oceanic lithosphere, oceanic-continental lithosphere, and continental-continental lithosphere. The geologic features related to convergent boundaries vary depending on crust types. Plate tectonics is driven by convection cells in the mantle. Convection cells are the result of heat generated by the radioactive decay of elements in the mantle escaping to the surface and the return of cool materials from the surface to the mantle. These convection cells bring ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divergent Boundary
In plate tectonics, a divergent boundary or divergent plate boundary (also known as a constructive boundary or an extensional boundary) is a linear feature that exists between two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other. Divergent boundaries within continents initially produce rifts, which eventually become rift valleys. Most active divergent plate boundaries occur between oceanic plates and exist as mid-oceanic ridges. Current research indicates that complex convection within the Earth's mantle allows material to rise to the base of the lithosphere beneath each divergent plate boundary. This supplies the area with huge amounts of heat and a reduction in pressure that melts rock from the asthenosphere (or upper mantle) beneath the rift area, forming large flood basalt or lava flows. Each eruption occurs in only a part of the plate boundary at any one time, but when it does occur, it fills in the opening gap as the two opposing plates move away from each o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transform Boundary
A transform fault or transform boundary, is a fault along a plate boundary where the motion is predominantly horizontal. It ends abruptly where it connects to another plate boundary, either another transform, a spreading ridge, or a subduction zone. A transform fault is a special case of a ''strike-slip fault'' that also forms a plate boundary. Most such faults are found in oceanic crust, where they accommodate the lateral offset between segments of divergent boundaries, forming a zigzag pattern. This is a result of oblique seafloor spreading where the direction of motion is not perpendicular to the trend of the overall divergent boundary. A smaller number of such faults are found on land, although these are generally better-known, such as the San Andreas Fault and North Anatolian Fault. Nomenclature Transform boundaries are also known as conservative plate boundaries because they involve no addition or loss of lithosphere at the Earth's surface. Background Geophysicist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tectonic Plates
Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large tectonic plates which have been slowly moving since about 3.4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of '' continental drift'', an idea developed during the first decades of the 20th century. Plate tectonics came to be generally accepted by geoscientists after seafloor spreading was validated in the mid to late 1960s. Earth's lithosphere, which is the rigid outermost shell of the planet (the crust and upper mantle), is broken into seven or eight major plates (depending on how they are defined) and many minor plates or "platelets". Where the plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of plate boundary: '' convergent'', '' divergent'', or '' transform''. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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