http://sukhotinsky.blogspot.com/ - phystech@gmail.com
My science/technology-related thoughts, sometimes controversial, sometimes can be based on limited knowledge base, logic can be non-perfect as well. I develop my vision in iterations. Don't take this blog as an attempt to convince anybody in anything.
Each post in this blog reflects my level of understanding of Tectonics of the Earth at the time the post was written; so, some posts may not necessarily be correct now.

22 July, 2011

Flood basalt.

1. Old crust breaks into pieces, new crust subducts under it. Magma gets locked.
   Once the subduction of the oceanic crust started, the newly spread crust is easier to get subducted compared to the crust that was developed by spreading against non-subduction borders. Current Atlantic ocean crust is not as smooth and thin as most of Pacific ocean crust. That's why when The Ring OF Fire had shrunk and the continents decided on getting back through Atlantic, the current Atlantic crust would not get subducted, it would rather be getting broken into chunks, and the chunks would take inclined position. The newly spread crust being smooth and thin would be able to get bent and dive under the chunks of old crust. The magma below the broken chunks of older crust is getting locked by the subducting plate.
2. Overlapped subducting plates uplift the locked volume of magma. 
   The Ring Of Fire is shrinking. Subducting plates are getting overlapped. One plate's performing shallow subduction, the other's doing steep subduction. The resulting deep structure is less dense than surrounding magma, thus the locked volume of magma is getting uplifted.
3. The diverging process squeezes the locked magma out.
   The uplifted ridge is getting broken by gravitation assisted diverging process due to the boundary deformations between the two plates. The diverging process squeezes the locked magma out and down from the volume. Probably The Snake River Plain could be a good example of the process. The overlapping plates had locked magma under it and had uplifted it. The thick structure of overlapped plates did not melt for quite long time and had reached as far as Yellowstone. The diverging process naturally squeezed out the magma down on both sides - Columbia river and Great Basin flood basalt. The process on the tip of the overlapped plates would cause a stream of magma and thus would be forming calderas from time to time.
---
reposted to 
http://divergent-boundaries.blogspot.com/
---

No comments:

Post a Comment

--
Content of this blog copyright © 2006-2014 Sergey D. Sukhotinsky
---

Powered By Blogger
---