What will happen to Cocos Plate?
As the Cocos slab heads into the subduction zone under the North American plate, it bends and cracks. As the slab passes into and through the subduction zone into the lower mantle, it warms up and dehydrates.
What type of boundary is the Cocos Plate and Caribbean plate?
This subduction-subduction-transform (SST) triple junction is referred to hereafter as the NACC triple junction. Off the Pacific coast, the Cocos plate is subducted beneath both the North American and Caribbean plates, which are separated by a sinistral transcurrent boundary.
What kind of tectonic plate is the Cocos Plate?
oceanic tectonic plate
The Cocos Plate is a young oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America, named for Cocos Island, which rides upon it. The Cocos Plate was created approximately 23 million years ago when the Farallon Plate broke into two pieces, which also created the Nazca Plate.
What is the Cocos Plate movement?
The Cocos Plate, running along the ocean floor off the Pacific coast of Central America, moves 75 mm or 3 inches a year — almost 25 feet per century. That’s roughly twice the average velocity of the earth’s plates. (The Cocos Plate is a subducting plate where it converges with the Caribbean Plate.)
What would happen if a tectonic plate broke?
However, today’s research shows that comparatively little volcanic activity occurred when the present-day sub-continent of India broke away from what is now the Seychelles, 63 million years ago.
How big is the Nazca plate?
15,600,000 km2
Nazca is a relatively young plate both in terms of the age of its rocks and its existence as an independent plate having been formed from the break-up of the Farallon Plate about 23 million years ago….
| Nazca Plate | |
|---|---|
| Approximate area | 15,600,000 km2 |
| Movement1 | north-east |
| Speed1 | 40-53 mm/year |
| Features | Pacific Ocean |
Is the Caribbean plate convergent or divergent?
Near the eastern margin of the Caribbean plate there are recently active volcanoes in the lesser Antilles. These are associated with a convergent plate boundary and caused by subduction of the North American plate beneath the eastern edge of the Caribbean plate.
Is the Caribbean plate convergent?
On the western edge of the plate is a continuous subduction zone where the Cocos, Panama, and North Andean Plates are all converging with the Caribbean Plate.
Is the Arabian plate convergent or divergent?
The Zagros and Makran Mountains in Iran and the Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey are, respectively, the eastern and northern boundaries of the Arabian Plate, which are classified as convergent plate boundaries that represent the zone of collision between the Arabian Plate and the Eurasian Plate.
What does the Cocos Plate look like?
The Cocos Plate is a relatively small sized, triangular-shaped oceanic plate, located beneath the Pacific Ocean, off the west coast of Central America. It is named for Cocos Island, which is the only emergent island of the plate.
What countries are located in the Cocos Plate?
The Cocos Plate in the Pacific Ocean is subducted beneath the Caribbean Plate, just off the western coast of Central America. This subduction forms the volcanoes of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, also known as the Central America Volcanic Arc.
How much do tectonic plates move during an earthquake?
These plates are constantly moving (albeit very slowly) at rates up to four inches per year (10 cm/yr) although most rates of travel are considerably less. Also, the rate of travel varies at different locations within each plate.