Which of the following is a characteristic of an active continental margin?
Which of the following is a characteristic of an active continental margin?
Active continental margins are characterized by rugged coastlines with narrow beaches and steep sea cliffs. The West Coast of the United States is an active continental margin (Figure 15-8).
What features would you expect to see at an active margin?
Active margins are marked by earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain belts. Unlike passive margins, they lack a continental rise and abyssal plain. Instead, the continental slope ends in an oceanic trench, and beyond the trench, the topography is hilly and irregular, often dotted with rugged volcanic seamounts.
What is a description of continental rise?
continental rise, a major depositional regime in oceans made up of thick sequences of continental material that accumulate between the continental slope and the abyssal plain.
What does a continental rise look like?
Continental rises feature deep-sea fans. In appearance they are much like alluvial fans on land found along the fronts of mountain ranges. Deep-sea fans are accumulations of sediment deposited by turbidity currents (called turbidites) at the foot of the continental slope.
What are the characteristics of a passive margin?
Passive margins are characterized by thick accumulations of sediments. Space for these sediments is called accommodation and is due to subsidence of especially the transitional crust. Subsidence is ultimately caused by gravitational equilibrium that is established between the crustal tracts, known as isostasy.
What are the major geologic features of continental margins?
The continental margins consist of three portions: (1) the continental shelf which has shallow water depths rarely deeper than 650 ft) and extends seaward from the shoreline to distances ranging from 12.3 miles to 249 miles, (2) the continental slope where the bottom drops off to depths of up to 3.1 miles, and (3) the …
What are some of the features of the west coast active continental margin and the Gulf Coast passive continental margin )?
The West Coast of the United States is an active margin that is characterized by rugged coastlines with narrow beaches and steep sea cliffs. Passive continental margins occur where the transition between oceanic and continental crust which is not an active plate boundary.
How is continental margin formed?
Convergent continental margins develop when two crustal plates collide. When an ocean plate collides with a less dense continental plate a marginal basin forms between the island arc and the continent.
What are the three features of the continental margin?
The continental margin consists of three different features: the continental rise, the continental slope, and the continental shelf. The continental shelf is the portion of the continental margin that transitions from the shore out towards to ocean. They are believed to make up 7 percent of the sea floor.
What are the two types of continental margins?
There are two types of continental margins: active and passive margins. Active margins are typically associated with lithospheric plate boundaries.
What does it mean by continental margin?
Here are all the possible meanings and translations of the word Continental margin. The continental margin is the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust. Together, the continental shelf, continental slope, and continental rise are called continental margin.
What are the features of passive continental margin?
Most continental margins around the Atlantic are passive. Key characteristics of passive continental margins includes the absence of volcanoes and much earthquake activity, wide continental shelves, no large coastal mountains, and much more.
