What direction is the Juan de Fuca Plate moving?
east-northeast
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. The Farallon plate used to include what is now the Cocos Plate off Mexico and Central America and the Juan de Fuca Plate in our region from N.
What happens with the plates at the Juan de Fuca Ridge?
Oceanic crust forms by eruptions along the Juan de Fuca Ridge. As the Juan de Fuca Plate drifts eastward, it cools, becomes more dense, and eventually dives under the less dense North American Plate at the Cascadia Trench.
Where the Juan de Fuca Plate is pushing under the North American Plate?
The Cascades are the modern volcanic arc developing where the Juan de Fuca Plate subducts beneath the North American Plate.
What type of plate is the Juan de Fuca?
The Juan de Fuca Plate is a small tectonic plate (microplate) generated from the Juan de Fuca Ridge that is subducting beneath the northerly portion of the western side of the North American Plate at the Cascadia subduction zone. It is named after the explorer of the same name.
Is Juan de Fuca a divergent?
The Juan de Fuca Ridge is a mid-ocean spreading center and divergent plate boundary located off the coast of the Pacific Northwest region of North America.
What type of plate boundaries are on the Juan de Fuca?
The Juan de Fuca has all three types of dynamic plate boundaries occurring within a relatively small area. The three types of dynamic plate boundaries are the convergent, divergent, and the transform boundaries.
When did the Juan de Fuca Plate start subducting?
The Gorda plate started moving 3 million years ago while the Explorer plate started moving 5 million years ago at the southern and northern ends of the Juan de Fuca plate. Movement of these plates occurs along the Cascadia subduction zone (Stock & Lee, 1994).
Where is Juan de Fuca?
The Strait of Juan de Fuca is located in western Washington, along the border between Canada and the United States.
How did Juan de Fuca Plate form?
introduction. The Juan de Fuca plate is located on the west coast of North America, between the Pacific plate (to the west) and the North American plate (to the east). The Juan de Fuca plate formed during the Oligocene as a result of the Farallon plate breaking into a series of smaller plates (Govers & Meijer, 2001).
Is Juan de Fuca a transform boundary?
The remnant of the Farallon which was not entirely subducted in the north of the Pacific-North American plate transform boundary (at a point named for the juncture of the three tectonic plates: Mendocino Triple Junction) was one solid continuous Juan de Fuca plate.
Which direction are the oceanic and continental plates moving?
Which direction are the oceanic and continental plates moving? Oceanic is moving to the right while the continental is moving to the right. Oceanic plate will go under continental plate because it is thinner and denser.
Why do tectonic plates move in different directions?
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. The heat from radioactive processes within the planet’s interior causes the plates to move, sometimes toward and sometimes away from each other.
How did the Juan de Fuca Ridge form?
Geologic history Approximately 30 million years ago, the Farallon Plate, being driven outwards by the Pacific-Farallon ridge, was pushed underneath the North American Plate, splitting what remained into the Juan de Fuca Plate to the North and the Cocos Plate and Nazca Plate to the South.
Are the plates moving towards the same or different directions?
Each plate is moving in a different direction, but the exact direction depends on the “reference frame,” or viewpoint, in which you are looking at the motion.
What are the plates that are moving towards each other?
Convergent boundaries are areas where plates move toward each other and collide. These are also known as compressional or destructive boundaries. Subduction zones occur where an oceanic plate meets a continental plate and is pushed underneath it. Subduction zones are marked by oceanic trenches.
What happens if tectonic plates move in the same direction?
When oceanic or continental plates slide past each other in opposite directions, or move in the same direction but at different speeds, a transform fault boundary is formed. No new crust is created or subducted, and no volcanoes form, but earthquakes occur along the fault.
What is the Juan de Fuca Ridge?
The Juan de Fuca Ridge is a mid-ocean spreading center and divergent plate boundary located off the coast of the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The ridge separates the Pacific Plate to the west and the Juan de Fuca Plate to the east.
Which of the will from when two tectonic plates are moving toward each other?
Explanation: When two plate move towards each other they converge or come together. The collision between two plates that are moving towards each other is called a convergent boundary. When an ocean plate meets a continental plate at close to a straight line ( 180 degrees) the result is a subduction zone.
Do plates only move one direction?
How tectonic plates move and in what direction?
Divergent boundaries occur along spreading centers where plates are moving apart and new crust is created by magma pushing up from the mantle. Picture two giant conveyor belts, facing each other but slowly moving in opposite directions as they transport newly formed oceanic crust away from the ridge crest.
Why do tectonic plates change direction?
The heat from radioactive processes within the planet’s interior causes the plates to move, sometimes toward and sometimes away from each other. This movement is called plate motion, or tectonic shift.