Tectonic Magmatic Setting - Aleutian Arc (Scheland, 2015)
Item
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Title
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Tectonic Magmatic Setting - Aleutian Arc (Scheland, 2015)
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Description
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The Aleutian Arc is and island arc that formed and continues to grow as the result of volcanism produced by the subduction of one oceanic plate beneath another. This process of subduction occurs at convergent margins, and in the case of the Aleutian Arc the setting is one of oceanic plate convergence. This means two oceanic lithospheric plates collided and one began to subduct beneath the other because it was denser.
At the Aleutian Arc the Pacific plate is subducting beneath the North American. Their collision is not perpendicular as the motion of the Pacific plate is north west at roughly 7 to 11 centimeters per year and the North American plate's motion is west of south west around 2.3 centimeters per year.
The magmatic setting that result from the subduction of a hydrated oceanic lithospheric plate is one that involves melts forming in the mantle wedge between the overriding and subducting plate (Fig. 2). That melt then is free to rise through any overlying arc lithosphere and crust. There is may undergo any number of evolutionary processes which are discussed in the magma generation and geochemistry sections of this exhibit.
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Subject
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A description of the tectonic magmatic setting at the Aleutian Arc volcanic setting
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Creator
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Cullen Scheland
