EPSC 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Fracture Zone, Indian Plate, Himalayas
26 Jan 2017
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Document Summary
Accretionary prisms: wedge-shaped mass of sediment scraped off the subducting oceanic plate. Because continental crust is less dense than oceanic crus and cannot subduct, colliding continental lithospheric plates will ram each other. Since the rocks cannot readily be pushed down, they have nowhere to go but up. Mountain building, as continents ram into each other. The himalayas formed by collision of the indian plate with the eurasian plate. The alps formed by collision of a micro plate (including italy) with the eurasian plate. Lithosphere fractures and slides laterally: no new plate forms; none consumed, many transforms offset spreading ridge segments, some transforms cut through continental crust. Characterized by: earthquakes, absence of volcanism. Transform faults: connect convergent or divergent plate boundaries, fracture zone: A transform fault that offsets the oceanic ridge and connects two divergent boundaries. Continental transforms cut across continental crust: example san andreas fault, california.
