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Tyrrhenian Basin
The Tyrrhenian Basin is a sedimentary basin located in the western Mediterranean Sea under the Tyrrhenian Sea. It covers a 231,000 km2 area that is bounded by Sardinia to the west, Corsica to the northwest, Sicily to the southeast, and peninsular Italy to the northeast. The Tyrrhenian basin displays an irregular seafloor marked by several seamounts and two distinct sub-basins - the Vavilov and Marsili basins. The Vavilov deep plain contains the deepest point of the Tyrrhenian basin at approximately 3785 meters. The basin trends roughly northwest–southeast with the spreading axis trending northeast–southwest. Regional geologic setting The Tyrrhenian basin is located in a geologically complex portion of the Mediterranean Sea. The basin is partially encircled by several orogenic belts, including the Apennines to the northeast, the Alps to the north, and the Atlas mountains to the southwest. It is also bounded by a convergent boundary and associated trench to the southeas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sedimentary Basin
Sedimentary basins are region-scale depressions of the Earth's crust where subsidence has occurred and a thick sequence of sediments have accumulated to form a large three-dimensional body of sedimentary rock. They form when long-term subsidence creates a regional depression that provides Accommodation (geology), accommodation space for accumulation of sediments. Over millions or tens or hundreds of millions of years the deposition of sediment, primarily gravity-driven transportation of water-borne eroded material, acts to fill the depression. As the sediments are buried, they are subject to increasing pressure and begin the processes of compaction (geology), compaction and lithification that transform them into sedimentary rock. Sedimentary basins are created by deformation of Earth's lithosphere in diverse geological settings, usually as a result of plate tectonics, plate tectonic activity. Mechanisms of crustal deformation that lead to subsidence and sedimentary basin formati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quaternary
The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ago to the present. The Quaternary Period is divided into two epochs: the Pleistocene (2.58 million years ago to 11.7 thousand years ago) and the Holocene (11.7 thousand years ago to today, although a third epoch, the Anthropocene, has been proposed but is not yet officially recognised by the ICS). The Quaternary Period is typically defined by the cyclic growth and decay of continental ice sheets related to the Milankovitch cycles and the associated climate and environmental changes that they caused. Research history In 1759 Giovanni Arduino proposed that the geological strata of northern Italy could be divided into four successive formations or "orders" ( it, quattro ordini). The term "quaternary" was introduced by Jules Desnoye ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hercynian Orogeny
The Variscan or Hercynian orogeny was a geologic mountain-building event caused by Late Paleozoic continental collision between Euramerica (Laurussia) and Gondwana to form the supercontinent of Pangaea. Nomenclature The name ''Variscan'', comes from the Medieval Latin name for the district '' Variscia'', the home of a Germanic tribe, the Varisci; Eduard Suess, professor of geology at the University of Vienna, coined the term in 1880. (Variscite, a rare green mineral first discovered in the Vogtland district of Saxony in Germany, which is in the Variscan belt, has the same etymology.) ''Hercynian'', on the other hand, derives from the Hercynian Forest. Both words were descriptive terms of strike directions observed by geologists in the field, ''variscan'' for southwest to northeast, ''hercynian'' for northwest to southeast. The ''variscan'' direction reflected the direction of ancient fold belts cropping out throughout Germany and adjacent countries and the meaning shifted from d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleozoic
The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ''zōḗ'' (), "life", meaning "ancient life" ). It is the longest of the Phanerozoic eras, lasting from , and is subdivided into six geologic periods (from oldest to youngest): # Cambrian # Ordovician # Silurian # Devonian # Carboniferous # Permian The Paleozoic comes after the Neoproterozoic Era of the Proterozoic Eon and is followed by the Mesozoic Era. The Paleozoic was a time of dramatic geological, climatic, and evolutionary change. The Cambrian witnessed the most rapid and widespread diversification of life in Earth's history, known as the Cambrian explosion, in which most modern phyla first appeared. Arthropods, molluscs, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and synapsids all evolved during the Paleozoic. Life began in the ocean ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basement Rocks
In geology, basement and crystalline basement are crystalline rocks lying above the mantle and beneath all other rocks and sediments. They are sometimes exposed at the surface, but often they are buried under miles of rock and sediment. The basement rocks lie below a sedimentary platform or cover, or more generally any rock below sedimentary rocks or sedimentary basins that are metamorphic or igneous in origin. In the same way, the sediments or sedimentary rocks on top of the basement can be called a "cover" or "sedimentary cover". Crustal rocks are modified several times before they become basement, and these transitions alter their composition. Continental crust Basement rock is the thick foundation of ancient, and oldest, metamorphic and igneous rock that forms the crust of continents, often in the form of granite. Basement rock is contrasted to overlying sedimentary rocks which are laid down on top of the basement rocks after the continent was formed, such as sandstone and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volcanic Belt
A volcanic belt is a large volcanically active region. Other terms are used for smaller areas of activity, such as volcanic fields. Volcanic belts are found above zones of unusually high temperature () where magma is created by partial melting of solid material in the Earth's crust and upper mantle. These areas usually form along tectonic plate boundaries at depths of . For example, volcanoes in Mexico and western North America are mostly in volcanic belts, such as the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt that extends from west to east across central-southern Mexico and the Northern Cordilleran Volcanic Province in western Canada. The deeply deformed and eroded remnants of ancient volcanic belts are found in volcanically inactive regions such as the Canadian Shield. It contains over 150 volcanic belts (now deformed and eroded down to nearly flat plains) that range from 600 to 1,200 million years old. These are zones of variably metamorphosed mafic to ultramafic volcanic sequences wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heat Flow
Heat transfer is a discipline of thermal engineering that concerns the generation, use, conversion, and exchange of thermal energy (heat) between physical systems. Heat transfer is classified into various mechanisms, such as thermal conduction, thermal convection, thermal radiation, and transfer of energy by phase changes. Engineers also consider the transfer of mass of differing chemical species (mass transfer in the form of advection), either cold or hot, to achieve heat transfer. While these mechanisms have distinct characteristics, they often occur simultaneously in the same system. Heat conduction, also called diffusion, is the direct microscopic exchanges of kinetic energy of particles (such as molecules) or quasiparticles (such as lattice waves) through the boundary between two systems. When an object is at a different temperature from another body or its surroundings, heat flows so that the body and the surroundings reach the same temperature, at which point they are in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moho Discontinuity
Moho may refer to: Birds * ''Moho'' (genus), an extinct genus of birds in the family Mohoidae * The Hawaiian name of the Hawaiian rail, an extinct species * The Māori name of the North Island takahe, an extinct species * A local name for the oriole warbler, ''Hypergerus atriceps'' Computers * Moho (software), 2D animation software also sold as Anime Studio * Moho Engine, used in games such as '' Supreme Commander'' * ''Moho'' (video game), a 2000 Dreamcast game by Take-Two Interactive Geology and geography * Moho discontinuity, the boundary between the Earth's crust and the mantle * Moho, Puno, a city in Peru * Moho District, Peru * Moho Province, Peru * Moho River, in Guatemala and Belize Other uses * Model of Human Occupation, a model of practice in occupational therapy * Mount Holyoke College, a small, historically-women's liberal arts college in South Hadley, MA, USA *Motorhome A motorhome (or motor coach) is a type of self-propelled recreational vehicle (RV) whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eurasian Plate
The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and the area east of the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia. It also includes oceanic crust extending westward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and northward to the Gakkel Ridge. The eastern edge is a boundary with the North American Plate to the north and a boundary with the Philippine Sea Plate to the south and possibly with the Okhotsk Plate and the Amurian Plate. The southern edge is a boundary with the African Plate to the west, the Arabian Plate in the middle and the Indo-Australian Plate to the east. The western edge is a divergent boundary with the North American Plate forming the northernmost part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is straddled by Iceland. All volcanic eruptions in Iceland, such as the 1973 eruption of Eldfell, the 1783 eruptio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Plate
The African Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes much of the continent of Africa (except for its easternmost part) and the adjacent oceanic crust to the west and south. It is bounded by the North American Plate and South American Plate to the west (separated by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge); the Arabian Plate and Somali Plate to the east; the Eurasian Plate, Aegean Sea Plate and Anatolian Plate to the north; and the Antarctic Plate to the south. Between and , the Somali Plate began rifting from the African Plate along the East African Rift. Since the continent of Africa consists of crust from both the African and the Somali plates, some literature refers to the African Plate as the Nubian Plate to distinguish it from the continent as a whole. Boundaries The western edge of the African Plate is a divergent boundary with the North American Plate to the north and the South American Plate to the south which forms the central and southern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Back-arc Basin
A back-arc basin is a type of geologic basin, found at some convergent plate boundaries. Presently all back-arc basins are submarine features associated with island arcs and subduction zones, with many found in the western Pacific Ocean. Most of them result from tensional forces, caused by a process known as oceanic trench rollback, where a subduction zone moves towards the subducting plate. Back-arc basins were initially an unexpected phenomenon in plate tectonics, as convergent boundaries were expected to universally be zones of compression. However, in 1970, Dan Karig published a model of back-arc basins consistent with plate tectonics. Structural characteristics Back-arc basins are typically very long and relatively narrow, often thousands of kilometers long while only being a few hundred kilometers wide at most. For back-arc extension to form, a subduction zone is required, but not all subduction zones have a back-arc extension feature. Back-arc basins are found in area ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
