Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos
subduction zone
Introduction References & Edit History Related Topics
Images
Cross-sectional diagram illustrating plate tectonics, showing oceanic and continental crust moving over the asthenosphere. It highlights divergent boundaries at oceanic ridges where crust forms, convergent boundaries at trenches with subduction zones where crust is destroyed, and a transform boundary with a fault. Features such as island arcs, rising magma, and hotspots are labeled. The Earth's crust is a jigsaw puzzle of huge rigid plates in constant relative motion. The plates are bounded by three types of features: ridge axes, where new seafloor is created in mid-ocean; transform faults, where plates slide past one another; and subduction zones, where plates overlap, with one plate sliding under the other. Diagram showing the process of slab pull in plate tectonics, with an oceanic plate subducting beneath a continental plate. Arrows illustrate mantle convection, gravity pulling the slab downward, and viscous resistance in the mantle layers, while labels identify the lithosphere, upper and lower mantle, and the forces acting on the plates. cross section of a tectonic plate Cross-sectional diagram of a subduction zone showing oceanic crust moving beneath continental crust, with features labeled including transform fault, oceanic ridge, trench, accretionary wedge, rising magma, and the Benioff-Wadati zone.

subduction zone: References & Edit History

Article Contributors

Primary Contributors

  • The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
    Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.

Other Contributors

  • Dalia Rubin

Other Encyclopedia Britannica Contributors

Article History

Type Description Contributor Date
Invalidated site: Plate Tectonics - Subduction Zones. Jan 08, 2018
Map depicting Earth's tectonic plates and subduction zones added. Feb 01, 2011
Text noting that subduction occurs between sections of oceanic crust added. Aug 13, 2010
Added new Web site: How Volcanoes Work - Subduction zone volcanism. Feb 05, 2009
Added new Web site: University of Leeds - Subduction Zone. Feb 05, 2009
Added new Web site: Plate Tectonics - Subduction Zones. Feb 05, 2009
Article added to new online database. Jul 20, 1998
View Changes:
Article History
Revised:
By: