GEO 120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Sea Level Rise, Cape Cod National Seashore, Coir
31 Oct 2016
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Geo 120 - lecture 14 - passive margins - elizabeth laliberte. Earthquakes mostly lie along plates that are moving. The nearest plate boundary to the us east coast is the mid-atlantic ridge. The us northwest coast lies along a convergent plate boundary, and so is considered an active continental margin. The us east coast is considered a passive continental margin. Continental crust thins and stretches as a continent rifts apart. New oceanic crust develops between the fragments. Passive continental margins go from thick continental > thin oceanic crust. Land surface and sea bottom profiles at a passive continental margin. A wedge of sediment covers the edge of the continent as the passive margin cools and subsides; the sediment is from land. Elements of land surface and sea bottom are due to the type of crust and shape of the sediment wedge. National seashores lie along the very gentle slope compromising the coastal plain and continental shelf.
