Plate tectonics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Plate tectonics - Essay Example All the plates in the world, whether major or minor, whether oceanic or continental, have some bearing on each other at one point. There are three known types of plate boundaries and one of these three is a convergent plate boundary. When a foremost plate transpose between each other, meeting borderlines of these plates encounter along it. As a result, earthquakes are generated due to the large amounts of forces and energies that are released when these plates encounter one another at their boundaries. The majority of the most formidable earthquakes have been the result of these convergent plate boundaries. In addition, in convergent plate boundaries, two plates move and one of them is subducted, or moved underground as the other supersedes above. Where the outermost layer of the Earth, the crust is broken and split and is reprocessed into the mantle is called as the Subduction Zone. â€Å"These are recognized as Subduction Zones, a major site of volcanism on Earth.† (Eggins 1 59) Convergent plate boundaries are further categorized into three types, named from the two different kinds of plates that are involved. First is the Oceanic-Continental Plate Convergence. This happens when a continental plate supersedes and overrides an oceanic plate, pushing this oceanic plate underneath the continental plate. The usual landform that is created or produced is a mountain range, a strip of mountains that are linked together by elevated ground. As written in Geology.com contributed by Hobart King, â€Å"The Andes Mountain Range of western South America is another example of a convergent boundary between an oceanic and continental plate. Here the Nazca Plate is subducting beneath the South American plate.† The second type of a convergent plate boundary is a. This time, the two plates that are involved are both oceanic plates. Thus, this second type is called the oceanic-oceanic plate convergence and the landform that is created is a trench, an extensive and great hollow dent