What type of convergent plate boundary is found along the west coast of South America?

What type of convergent plate boundary is found along the west coast of South America?

subduction zone
The west coast of South America is a subduction zone, which means that the oceanic plate, called the Nazca plate, is being forced beneath the adjacent continental plate. The Andes mountains were thrust upwards by this motion, and can still be considered “under construction” by the earth’s crust.

What type of boundary lies on the west coast of South America?

The Nazca Plate or Nasca Plate, named after the Nazca region of southern Peru, is an oceanic tectonic plate in the eastern Pacific Ocean basin off the west coast of South America.

What type of boundary is found between the Nazca and South American plates?

continent convergent boundaries
Examples of ocean-continent convergent boundaries are subduction of the Nazca Plate under South America (which has created the Andes Range) and subduction of the Juan de Fuca Plate under North America (creating the mountains Garibaldi, Baker, St.

What type of plate boundary is the west coast of Washington state?

convergent plate boundary
The Cascadia Subduction Zone, extending from northern California through western Oregon and Washington to southern British Columbia, is a type of convergent plate boundary.

Where are convergent plate boundaries found in South America?

What type of convergent plate boundary is found along the west coast of South America where there is an ocean trench offshore and the Andes Mountains onshore? This convergent plate boundary is called a subduction zone.

How are ocean trenches a feature of convergent plate boundaries?

In particular, ocean trenches are a feature of convergent plate boundaries, where two or more tectonic plates meet. At many convergent plate boundaries, dense lithosphere melts or slides beneath less-dense lithosphere in a process called subduction , creating a trench.

Where is the continental crust located in South America?

On the west coast of South America the denser ballistic ocean crust of the pacific plate is pushed under the lighter granite continental crust of South America. This causes a sub duction zone.

What happens when tectonic plates converge in a subduction zone?

Where tectonic plates converge, the one with dense, thin oceanic crust subducts beneath the one with thick, more buoyant continental crust. An accretionary wedge forms between the converging plates as material is scraped off the subducting plate.