Is the Nazca plate growing or shrinking?

Is the Nazca plate growing or shrinking?

The Nazca Plate is moving eastwards, towards the South American Plate, at about 79mm per year.

Is Nazca plate convergent or divergent?

The Nazca plate is an oceanic tectonic plate in the southeastern Pacific Ocean that shares both convergent and divergent boundaries, corners multiple triple junctions, contains three seamount chains, overrides four hotspots, and is responsible for the creation of the Andean orogeny (Figure 1).

Is the Juan de Fuca plate convergent or divergent?

The Juan de Fuca and Gorda ridges mark the divergent plate boundary (the spreading ridge) with the Pacific plate. The Cascadia trench marks the subduction zone with the North American plate. The arrow shows the direction of convergence.

Is the Juan de Fuca plate getting bigger or smaller?

The Juan de Fuca plate offshore of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia is small – about the size of California and 50-70 kilometers thick – but “big enough to generate magnitude 9 earthquakes” as it’s shoved under the continental North American plate, Allen said.

Is California a convergent boundary?

The Cascadia Subduction Zone, extending from northern California through western Oregon and Washington to southern British Columbia, is a type of convergent plate boundary. Two parallel mountain ranges have been forming as a result of the Juan de Fuca Plate subducting beneath the edge of North America.

What type of plate is the Juan de Fuca plate?

The Juan de Fuca Plate is a small tectonic plate (microplate) generated from the Juan de Fuca Ridge that is subducting under the northerly portion of the western side of the North American Plate at the Cascadia subduction zone. It is named after the explorer of the same name.

Is the San Andreas Fault convergent?

Tectonic setting of the San Andreas Fault (transform plate boundary) in California, the subduction zone (convergent plate boundary: oceanic-continental collision) in the Pacific Northwest.

What will happen when San Andreas Fault breaks?

Narrator: Parts of the San Andreas Fault intersect with 39 gas and oil pipelines. This could rupture high-pressure gas lines, releasing gas into the air and igniting potentially deadly explosions. Stewart: So, if you have natural-gas lines that rupture, that’s how you can get fire and explosions.