which kind of rock forms when hot, molten mat
Weathering produces rock and mineral fragments known as...
The South American–Antarctic Ridge (SAAR or AAR) is the tectonic spreading center between the South American Plate and the Antarctic Plate. It runs along the sea-floor from the Bouvet Triple Junction in the South Atlantic Ocean south-westward to a major transform fault boundary east of the South Sandwich Islands.
What type of plate is the Australian plate?
The Australian plate is a continental plate and the Pacific plate is an oceanic plate. At this boundary, the Pacific plate is slowly moving under the Australian plate. This process is called subduction.
What is the plate boundary?
Plate boundaries are the edges where two plates meet. Most geologic activities, including volcanoes, earthquakes, and mountain building, take place at plate boundaries. … Convergent plate boundaries: the two plates move towards each other. Transform plate boundaries: the two plates slip past each other.
What happens at the convergent plate boundary?
A convergent boundary (also known as a destructive boundary) is an area on Earth where two or more lithospheric plates collide. One plate eventually slides beneath the other, a process known as subduction. The subduction zone can be defined by a plane where many earthquakes occur, called the Wadati–Benioff zone.
What are the three types of plate boundaries?
Movement in narrow zones along plate boundaries causes most earthquakes. Most seismic activity occurs at three types of plate boundaries—divergent, convergent, and transform. As the plates move past each other, they sometimes get caught and pressure builds up.
Is transform boundary?
A transform fault or transform boundary, sometimes called a strike-slip boundary, is a fault along a plate boundary where the motion is predominantly horizontal. … Most such faults are found in oceanic crust, where they accommodate the lateral offset between segments of divergent boundaries, forming a zigzag pattern.
Are lithosphere plates?
The lithosphere, which is the rigid outermost shell of a planet (the crust and upper mantle), is broken into tectonic plates. Earth’s lithosphere is composed of seven or eight major plates (depending on how they are defined) and many minor plates.
What is crust and tectonic plates?
Earth’s crust, called the lithosphere, consists of 15 to 20 moving tectonic plates. The plates can be thought of like pieces of a cracked shell that rest on the hot, molten rock of Earth’s mantle and fit snugly against one another. … This movement is called plate motion, or tectonic shift.
Which type of plate boundary made the plates move towards each other?
