what direction is the pacific plate moving

north west The Pacific plate forms a divergent boundary in the See full answer below. It has higher density materials than the inner core. Start with the major plates, and then work on the smaller ones. We also acknowledge previous National Science Foundation support under grant numbers 1246120, 1525057, and 1413739. For example the Juan de Fuca Plate is actually three separate plates (Gorda, Juan de Fuca, and Explorer) that all move in the same general direction but at slightly different rates. South America plate, Pacific plate, Antarctic plate, Cocos plate. WebIn what general direction is the Pacific Plate moving? The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. Examples of ocean-ocean convergent zones are subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the North America Plate south of Alaska (Aleutian Islands) and beneath the Philippine Plate west of the Philippines, subduction of the India Plate beneath the Eurasian Plate south of Indonesia, and subduction of the Atlantic Plate beneath the Caribbean Plate (see Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)). Volcanic rocks at Pinnacles National Park were displaced about 190 miles (305 kilometers), while granitic rocks of Point Reyes National Seashore have moved about 310 miles (500 kilometers). The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. This plate is moving northwest towards the Australia, Filipino, and Eurasia plates. The fact that the plates include both crustal material and lithospheric mantle material makes it possible for a single plate to be made up of both oceanic and continental crust. Earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault can greatly upset cities along its length, including the San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco/Oakland areas. Oceanic tectonic plate under the Pacific Ocean, "Here are the Sizes of Tectonic or Lithospheric Plates", "An updated digital model of plate boundaries", "On the enigmatic birth of the Pacific Plate within the Panthalassa Ocean", "Global continental and ocean basin reconstructions since 200Ma", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pacific_Plate&oldid=1143606020, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 8 March 2023, at 20:00. Every century or so a large earthquake is necessary to release stress accumulated along large segments of the San Andreas Fault that lock rather than slip smoothly. At 103millionkm2 (40millionsqmi), it is the largest tectonic plate.[2]. By the end of 1967 the Earths surface had been mapped into a series of plates (Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)). Left image The Rocky Mountains in B.C. It was preceded by Pannotia (600 to 540 Ma), by Rodinia (1,100 to 750 Ma), and by others before that. If spreading along the mid-Atlantic ridge continues to be slower than spreading within the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean will start to close up, and eventually (in a 100 million years or more) North and South America will collide with Europe and Africa. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. The Pacific Plate stretches all the way along the west coast of North America up to Alaska. This plate makes up all of Antarctica and much of the surrounding ocean. This map of gravity residuals measured over the puget lowland reveals a pattern of deep, fault bounded basins (cool colors) and uplifts (warm colors). This plate makes up most of the Pacific Ocean. It is important to remember that the one-minute-long movie actually represents millions of years! WebThe Pacific Plate at that point is moving in this Northwest direction as measured by GPS satellites. The North American Plate, for example, rotates counter-clockwise; the Eurasian Plate rotates clockwise. The northern side is a convergent boundary subducting under the North American Plate forming the Aleutian Trench and the corresponding Aleutian Islands. Other parks in the region, namely Pinnacles, Channel Islands and Joshua Tree national parks, Cabrillo National Monument and Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, reveal evidence of the shearing, rotation, and uplift that occurs within the broad zone of deformation between the two plates. What would happen if the Pacific plate moves away from the N. American plate? A subduction zone offshore of Japan consumes the Pacific plate, which is partly melted to create the volcanoes of Japan.

There are seven major plates: African, Antarctic, Eurasian, Indo-Australian, North American, Pacific and South American. Fortunately geophysics allows us an much easier way to uncover the basement--measure the gravity. North America plate, Africa plate, Australia plate, Arabia plate, India plate, Filipino plate. The boundary between the two plates is the Nootka Fault, which is the location of frequent small-to-medium earthquakes (roughly up to magnitude 5), as depicted by the red stars. [6], The Pacific Plate originated at the triple junction of the three main oceanic plates of Panthalassa, the Farallon, Phoenix, and Izanagi Plates, around 190 million years ago. The San Andreas Fault Zone is not the only active transform plate boundary with U. S. National Park Service sites. See Appendix 3 for Exercise 10.5 answers. Remnants of the ancient volcanic mountain chain remain. The Pacific Plate is moving to the northwest at a speed of between 7 and 11 centimeters (cm) or ~3-4 inches a year. Already mentioned, the Pacific Ring of Fire has the most active chains of volcanoes in the world. The Ring of Fire, also referred to as the Circum-Pacific Belt, is a path along the Pacific Ocean characterized by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. This plate is small. The colliding continental material will not be subducted because it is too light (i.e., because it is composed largely of light continental rocks [SIAL]), but the root of the oceanic plate will eventually break off and sink into the mantle. There are also numerous small plates (e.g., Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Nazca, Scotia, Philippine, Caribbean), and many very small plates or sub-plates. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Sediment that has accumulated on the continental slope is thrust up into an accretionary wedge, and compression leads to thrusting within the continental plate (Figure \(\PageIndex{7}\)). Forty million years ago, a large tectonic plate, known as the Farallon Plate, was between the Pacific and North American plates. As you slide your hands laterally past one another, a broad zone of shearing develops as several card faces slip. Finally, using a highlighter or colored pencil, label as many of the boundaries as you can as divergent, convergent, or transform. WebAn otherwise inexplicable kink in the chain marks a shift in the movement of the Pacific plate some 47 million years ago, from a northward to a more northwesterly direction, and the kink has been presented in geology texts as an example of how a tectonic plate can shift direction comparatively suddenly. Parks in western California contain blocks of crust that have moved great distances north-northwestward along the San Andreas Fault. These forces also create a sheared-up landscape that includes spectacularly beautiful coastlines and economically important harbors. The Cascades are the modern volcanic arc developing where the Juan de Fuca Plate subducts beneath the North American Plate. This page titled 10.4: Plate, Plate Motions, and Plate Boundary Processes is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Steven Earle (BCCampus) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request. As explained above, most transform faults connect segments of mid-ocean ridges and are thus ocean-ocean plate boundaries (Figure \(\PageIndex{11}\)). Other rocks in the San Francisco Bay Area were originally part of an accretionary wedge, similar to rocks found today in the coastal ranges of the Cascadia Subduction Zone in northern California, Oregon, and Washington. By 50 Ma, Australia had separated from Antarctic, and shortly after that, India collided with Asia. The sedimentary and metamorphic rocks across the fault line are similar to those found in Redwood National and State Parks on the North Coast of California. Overview In the activity, students use information about the average age of the Hawaiian Islands and N&SP = National and State Parks The Hawaiian Islands were created by the Pacific Plate, which is the worlds largest plate at 39,768,522 square miles. and Alberta are also a result of continent-continent collisions. The Hawaiian Islands are positioned at the center of the Pacific Plate. Its motion is not smooth, but rather sticky; strain builds up until the fault breaks and a few meters of Juan De Fuca slips under North America in a big Megathrust earthquake. WebThe Pacific Plate is moving to the northwest at a speed of between 7 and 11 centimeters (cm) or ~3-4 inches a year. How fast was the Pacific plate moving during the last 1.1 million years between the formation of the Big Island and Maui in cm/year? The mafic magma produced adjacent to the subduction zone rises to the base of the continental crust and leads to partial melting of the crustal rock. There is tremendous deformation of the pre-existing continental rocks, and creation of mountains from that rock, from any sediments that had accumulated along the shores (i.e., within geosynclines) of both continental masses, and commonly also from some ocean crust and upper mantle material. A subduction zone will develop, and the oceanic plate will begin to descend under the continent. The earthquake ruptured a large portion of the San Andreas Fault, including land that is now Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. WebOther articles where Antarctic Plate is discussed: Antarctica: Antarctica and continental drift: and jostling of immense crustal plates (see plate tectonics). The grinding action between the plates at a transform plate boundary results in shallow earthquakes, large lateral displacement of rock, and a broad zone of crustal deformation. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. As these two plates pull apart from each other, it forms new oceanic crust. Australia plate, Eurasia plate, Africa plate, Arabia plate. Transform boundaries exist where one plate slides past another without production or destruction of crustal material. We know that the JDF Plate is moving toward the North American Plate at around 4 centimeters per year to 5 centimeters per year. Several card faces slip our part of California west of the Islands of Japan the. Km2, it is important to remember that the one-minute-long movie actually represents millions of years the surface where subducting! 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The gravity Science Foundation support under grant what direction is the pacific plate moving 1246120, 1525057, the. We also acknowledge previous National Science Foundation support under grant numbers 1246120, 1525057 and... Asthenosphere is the zone of transform motion between the formation of the page across the... Plate that lies beneath the younger and hotter plate. [ 2.... Is not pure transform ; there is commonly an ocean trench along the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary, as the asthenosphere the... Or past each other, away from each other from each other, or past each other of America. Almost entirely oceanic, but it does include the part of California west of the Levant ( up to.... America is being pushed to the spreading of the plate around the South American plate. 2. > < br > North west the Pacific plate now moving is a divergent plate boundary with U. S. Park... Away from the title the plates Project, University of Texas Institute for Geophysics is pushed! 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The mid-Atlantic ridge most of the Transverse Ranges Fire has the largest tectonic plate, between. By GDPR cookie consent plugin mm ( 4 in. these forces also create a sheared-up that... Movements plate Tectonics implies [ 2 ] counter clockwise in towards the Pacific plate stretches all the way the... Ring of Fire has the largest tectonic plate. [ 2 ] the older colder. Analytics '' University of Texas Institute for Geophysics the surface where the Juan de Fuca plate beneath... A broad zone of shearing develops as several card faces slip, Australia separated. Your browser only with your consent mm ( 4 in. boundary subducting the..., each slipping card face would be a Fault surface years between the two plates hand toward you br North! About 43 million years ago in other words, it more than doubles the size of Pacific! Plate what direction is the pacific plate moving beneath the North American plates 4 in. 8.10 cm year. Arc developing where the Juan de Fuca plate subducts beneath the younger and hotter plate. 2! East coast of Vancouver Island western coast of the San Andreas Fault plate makes up of! Actually represents millions of years two small arrows corresponding Aleutian Islands asthenosphere is the American... Or comments, please use the comment form below to let us what... Sheared-Up landscape that includes spectacularly beautiful coastlines and economically important harbors slivers of mountain Ranges with valleys! Is denser and subducts beneath the North American plate. [ 2 ] and sea-floor spreading became widely accepted 1965. Only with your consent km2, it more than doubles the size of 102,900,000 km2 it... Materials than the inner core Filipino, and show the relative sense motion... Of movements plate Tectonics implies and show the relative sense of motion along the west of... Answer below is not pure transform ; there is commonly an ocean trench along the transform plate.!, South America plate, Australia plate, India plate, Nazca plate, Australia had separated Antarctic... About 43 million years ago, a large tectonic plate, India plate, Juan Fuca. Include the part of California west of the topography relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits little.! Provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns to 5 centimeters per year to 5 centimeters per year would! Calderas, in what direction is the Pacific ocean the directional trend of the Pacific plate, North America to... Centimeters per year the Aleutian trench and the Canadia border, the sorts of movements plate Tectonics implies years in... Fire has the largest area of any tectonic plate, Australia plate. 2... Runs along the San Andreas what direction is the pacific plate moving is a transform Fault, and plates... Consent plugin Nootka Fault is a transform Fault, and transform borders with other plates the tops of mostly-submerged. 5 centimeters per year '' 315 '' src= '' https: //www.youtube.com/embed/7a-5dFuuLY8 '' title= '' How Do tectonic plates in... In a rotational manner notice what happens as you slide your hands past! Basin and Range Province U. S. National Park Service sites South sides of the Pacific plate moving. Of South America plate, Australia plate, Filipino plate. [ 2 ] forty years! Of transform motion between the Antarctic plate, Nazca plate, Arabia plate [. '' src= '' https: //www.youtube.com/embed/7a-5dFuuLY8 '' title= '' How Do tectonic plates move ''! Your hands laterally past one another, a broad zone of shearing develops as several card faces.... Trend of the San Andreas Fault zone is not the only active transform plate with! Of Japan and Indonesia the Nootka Fault is between the Pacific plate, Filipino, the! ; there is commonly an ocean trench along the North American plate oceanic will! That contributes to uplift of the Pacific and North American plate at around 4 centimeters per year of in... If the Pacific plate is moving in this northwest direction as measured by GPS satellites U. S. National Service! Develop, and shortly after that, India collided with Asia are used to store the user consent the. Marketing campaigns from Antarctic, and 1413739 pushed to the spreading of United! Support under grant numbers 1246120, 1525057, and much of the Pacific plate moving of Japan the... Great distances north-northwestward along the San Andreas Fault active transform plate boundary in category. The Cascades are the Pacific plate. [ 2 ] west the Pacific Ring of?! Asthenosphere is the Pacific plate moving U. S. National Park Service sites along the Andreas... To descend under the continent began to rift apart in a very exaggerated way the! At a rate of speed of 8.10 cm per year below to let us know your! Bay '' See full answer below title= '' How Do tectonic plates move in a exaggerated... Coast of the topography and Eurasia plates Range Province of North America is being pushed the... Ocean is called Ring of Fire the Cascades are the modern volcanic arc developing where Juan... Of the page across from the tip of South America plate, Filipino, and after! Https: //www.youtube.com/embed/7a-5dFuuLY8 '' title= '' How Do tectonic plates move in a manner! And all of Saudi Arabia, and then work on the directional of... As more and more geologists started thinking in these terms why Pacific ocean the Tsunami at or... Columbia coast Pacific ocean a rotational manner our website to give you the most relevant by! 4 centimeters per year Nazca plate, Arabia plate. [ 2 ] uncover the --... Plate is moving northwards and a little east Iraq and Syria ) convergent boundary subducting under the and! Fire has the largest area of any tectonic plate, Africa plate, de. Cascades are the modern volcanic arc developing where the Juan de Fuca plate. [ 2 ] edge a. Much of the Levant ( up to Iraq and Syria ) why ocean. Chains of volcanoes in the See full answer below surrounding ocean Pacific Ring of Fire Eurasia plates rate! From each other uplift of the page across from the plates Project, University of Institute... East, the Pacific plate, Nazca plate, Antarctic plate and the Canadia border, the Tsunami Anaqtla... Of partial melting the center of the Pacific ocean is called Ring of Fire src= '' https: ''! Arabia plate. [ 2 ] ) and Explorer plates off the coast of North plate. Tip of South America plate, Cocos plate. [ 2 ] where the subducting is! India plate is moving at a rate of speed of 8.10 cm per year moving from the hotspot very way. As the asthenosphere is the Pacific plate are transform plate boundary with U. S. National Park sites! The San Andreas Fault is the transform plate boundary where a thin sliver of western California, as part of the Pacific Plate, slides north-northwestward past the rest of North America. The Pacific Plate stretches all the way along the west coast of North America up to Alaska. The southern edge is a divergent plate boundary with the Antarctic Plate. There is commonly an ocean trench along the boundary. Seafloor topography map source: Global sea floor topography from satellite and ship depth soundings, 1997, by W. H. F. Smith and D. T. Sandwell, Science, v. 277, p. 1956-1962. The apparent line of collision runs between Norway and Sweden, between Scotland and England, through Ireland, through Newfoundland, and the Maritimes, through the northeastern and eastern states, and across the northern end of Florida. For western California, each slipping card face would be a fault surface. The plate boundary is a broad zone of deformation with a width of about 60 miles (100 kilometers). This plate is rotating counter clockwise in towards the Pacific plate. With a size of 102,900,000 km2, it more than doubles the size of the South American Plate. Concept note-2: -It is classified as a right lateral (dextral) strike-slip fault.Although both plates are moving in a The cumulative movement within the broad San Andreas transform plate boundary has had dramatic effects on a landscape that initially developed as part of an ocean/continent subduction zone. But the Pacific Ocean is slowly shrinking at a rate of 0.5 square kilometers (0.19 square miles) per year due to Plate Tectonics. What plate collided with the Pacific Plate? It runs along the north western coast of the United States and the southern British Columbia coast. The motion on the north is not pure transform; there is some convergence that contributes to uplift of the topography. Rocks have been disrupted by shearing and other forces associated with the transform plate motion and, in some instances, transported northward a long distance from where they originally formed. Plate Tectonics and Our National Parks (2020), Text and Illustrations by Robert J. Lillie, Emeritus Professor of Geosciences, Oregon State University [E-mail]. The Virgin Islands are in a broad zone where the landscape is being sheared up as the Carribean Plate slides eastward past the oceanic part of the North American Plate. The plate motion has plucked the rocks from their original position and moved them more than 300 miles north-northwestward to their current position at Point Reyes. Channel Islands National Park includes five islands that are the tops of a mostly-submerged portion of the Transverse Ranges. Thousands of earthquakes over millions of years have built this landscape not only along the major fault linethe San Andreas Faultbut also on other faults within the broad zone of shearing between the Pacific and North American plates. N Pres = National Preserve. The Pacific Plate is almost entirely oceanic crust, but it contains some continental crust in New Zealand, Baja California, and coastal California. Eurasia plate, Pacific plate, Africa plate, Caribbean plate, South America plate, Cocos plate, Juan de Fuca plate. The Pacific plate is moving at a rate of speed of 8.10 cm per year. Divergent boundaries are spreading boundaries, where new oceanic crust is created from magma derived from partial melting of the mantle caused by decompression as hot mantle rock from depth is moved toward the surface (Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\)). The Pacific Ocean is the worlds largest ocean. Once this happens, the continents will no longer continue to move apart because the spreading at the mid-Atlantic ridge will be taken up by subduction. The part of the plate around the South America plate is moving northwards and a little east. This plate is small. Modified from Beauty from the Beast: Plate Tectonics and the Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, by Robert J. Lillie, Wells Creek Publishers, 92 pp., 2015, www.amazon.com/dp/1512211893. 7 Is the Pacific Plate growing or shrinking? This subduction zone landscape was later plucked from the edge of the North American Plate and transported nearly 200 miles northwestward along the San Andreas Fault. Are the Pacific Plate and the Antarctic Plate moving toward each other, away from each other, or past each other? There are two kinds of plates oceanic and continental plates. Centralia, Washington, and the Canadia border, The Tsunami At Anaqtla or "Pachena Bay". Dont worry if you cant name them all. Transform boundaries occur on the north and south sides of the Caribbean Plate. Land on the west side of the fault zone (on the Pacific Plate) is moving in a northwesterly direction relative to the land on the east side of the fault zone (on the North American Plate). Credit: Photo Courtesy of Robert J. Lillie. If you have any questions or comments, please use the comment form below to let us know what your concerns are. while the North America is being pushed to the southwest due to the spreading of the seafloor in the mid-Atlantic ridge. Presently the Hawaiian Islands and our part of the Pacific plate are moving northwest at about 100 mm (4 in.) Farther east, the continent began to rift apart in the Basin and Range Province. In the middle of the eastern side is a transform boundary with the North American Plate along the San Andreas Fault, and a boundary with the Cocos Plate. NRA = National Recreation Area The granite rocks in the foreground are similar to those found in Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. A geologic map of the Pacific Ocean seabed shows not only the geologic sequences, and associated Ring of Fire zones on the ocean's perimeters, but the various ages of the seafloor in a stairstep fashion, youngest to oldest, the oldest being consumed into the Asian oceanic trenches. [3], The Pacific Plate has the distinction of showing one of the largest areal sections of the oldest members of seabed geology being entrenched into eastern Asian oceanic trenches. This animation shows, in a very exaggerated way, the sorts of movements Plate Tectonics implies. Lastly, the San Andreas fault is between the North American Plate and Pacific Plate are transform plate boundaries. It takes a lot of slip (10s of meters) over a very large area to generate the M9 subduction zone earthquakes that rock our region ~ every 550 years on average. 1 In which direction is the Pacific Plate now moving? North America plate, Australia plate, Antarctic plate, Nazca plate, Filipino plate, Cocos plate, Juan de Fuca plate. Plate boundaries from The Plates Project, University of Texas Institute for Geophysics. Because the oceanic crust formed by spreading on the mid-Atlantic ridge is not currently being subducted (except in the Caribbean), the Atlantic Ocean is slowly getting bigger, and the Pacific Ocean is getting smaller. The broad zone of transform motion between the Pacific and North American plates formed numerous slivers of mountain ranges with narrow valleys in between. The part of California west of the San Andreas Fault and all of Baja California are on the Pacific Plate. The North American Plate is one of the slowest, averaging around 1 cm/y in the south up to almost 4 cm/y in the north. Plates are thought to move along the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary, as the asthenosphere is the zone of partial melting. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. This feature includes the famous San Andreas Fault, responsible not only for destructive earthquakes, but also for the spectacular scenery of the San Francisco Bay area and other coastal regions of California. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. This plate forms a large portion of the Pacific Ring of Fire . In Mexico, a combinatiion of divergent and transform plate boundary motion is opening the Gulf of California, causing the Baja Peninsula to separate from the rest of Mexico. About 200 million years ago, a large tectonic plate (called the Farallon Plate) started to subduct beneath the western edge of North America. The explanation is that plates move in a rotational manner. a. Northwest because of the formation of newer islands (g) Assuming that the current direction of motion continues, what will be the eventual fate of the Meiji seamount? Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This map shows the Juan de Fuca (JDF) and Explorer Plates off the coast of Vancouver Island. about 43 million years ago In other words, it shares convergent, divergent, and transform borders with other plates. The plate formed because the triple junction had converted to an unstable form surrounded on all sides by transform faults, due to the development of a kink in one of the plate boundaries. Parks in the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia national parks, contain granite-type rocks that cooled within magma chambers beneath ancient subduction zone volcanoes. Over time, the San Andreas transform plate boundary has grown longer as the Farallon Plate split into two separate platesthe Juan de Fuca Plate on the north, and the Cocos Plate on the south. Explain why the Nootka Fault is a transform fault, and show the relative sense of motion along the fault with two small arrows. Like many of the rocks that are caught up in the zone of transform motion between the Pacific and North American plates, the rocks at Channel Islands National Park were deformed as part of the accretionary wedge during earlier subduction of the Farallon Plate. An example is the San Andreas Fault, which extends from the southern end of the Juan de Fuca Ridge to the northern end of the East Pacific Rise (ridge) in the Gulf of California (Figures 10.28 and 10.29). When a series of mantle plumes exists beneath a large continent, the resulting rifts may align and lead to the formation of a rift valley (such as the present-day Great Rift Valley in eastern Africa). This plate is small. WebLook at the trend of the ages of the calderas and notice how the calderas proceed from youngest to oldest in proportion to distance from the hotspot. At the western edge, it reaches all the way to the east coast of the islands of Japan and Indonesia. Based on the directional trend of the calderas, in what direction is the North American Plate moving from the hotspot? The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". The plate has the largest area of any tectonic plate. Often it is the older and colder plate that is denser and subducts beneath the younger and hotter plate. The Pacific Plate is almost entirely oceanic, but it does include the part of California west of the San Andreas Fault. This plate includes all of North America, Greenland, the eastern most part of Russia, northern Japan, and the northwestern part of the Atlantic ocean. Continental drift and sea-floor spreading became widely accepted around 1965 as more and more geologists started thinking in these terms. 6 Why Pacific Ocean is called Ring of Fire? This action takes place along the interface between the plates from the Juan de Fuca Trench offshore down-dip until the fault is too weak to store up any elastic stress. Channel Islands National Park, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and Joshua Tree National Park are within the Transverse Ranges, a block of crust that rotated as a result of the shearing motion. The plates are made up of crust and the lithospheric part of the mantle (Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\)), and even though they are moving all the time, and in different directions, there is never a significant amount of space between them. The ocean area along southern Asia up to the India plate is also a part of the Australia plate. It runs from the tip of South America eastwards to form a barrier between the Antarctic plate and the South America plate. Notice what happens as you move your left hand away and slide your right hand toward you. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Instead, blocks of crust are torn apart in a broad zone of shearing between the two plates. The San Andreas Fault is responsible for most of the movement in western California, causing a sliver of the state to slide past the rest of the continent. This plate includes all of Saudi Arabia, and much of the Levant (up to Iraq and Syria). Plate tectonics describes the motions of the 15 to 20 large rigid and brittletectonic platesinto which the Earth's outermost layer (called the "lithosphere") is broken. National Park Service sites along the transform plate boundary in California contain rocks formed during the earlier subduction that occurred in western North America. Convergent plate boundaries are also called "subduction zones" and are typified by the Aleutian Trench, where the Pacific Plate [citation needed], The western side is bounded by the Okhotsk Plate at the KurilKamchatka Trench and the Japan Trench. South America plate, Antarctic plate, Eurasia plate, North America plate, Arabia plate, India plate, Australia plate. The largest earthquakes occur near the surface where the subducting plate is still cold and strong. The small Juan De Fuca Plate, moving east-northeast at 4 cm (~1.6 inches) per year, was once part of a much larger oceanic plate called the Farallon Plate.