What Happened
North America wouldn't look much like it currently does without a tectonic plate that has largely been lost to the Earth's geological history.
Why It Matters
The Farallon plate, which has since largely vanished underneath North America, helped build the West Coast by slamming large island chains into the continent as it disappeared.
Key Details
- California wouldn't exist without it, and one of the remaining fragments of the plate presently power the volcanoes of the Cascades.
- Now, a new paper suggests that the Farallon plate is still making its presence felt far from the coasts, powering one of North America's most distinctive phenomena: the Yellowstone hotspot, which has periodically blanketed much of the continent with ash.
- The new proposal suggests that the plate's vanishing act has created stresses that have opened paths for molten rock to reach the surface.
- Geologic hot spots exist around the globe; they're areas where deep material from the Earth's interior finds its way to the surface far from the edges of plates.
Background Context
North America wouldn't look much like it currently does without a tectonic plate that has largely been lost to the Earth's geological history. The Farallon plate, which has since largely vanished underneath North America, helped build the West Coast by slamming large island chains into the continent as it disappeared. California wouldn't exist without it, and one of the remaining fragments of the plate presently power the volcanoes of the Cascades. Now, a new paper suggests that the Farallon plate is still making its presence felt far from the coasts, powering one of North America's most distinctive phenomena: the Yellowstone hotspot, which has periodically blanketed much of the continent wi
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Source: Ars Technica – All content – Original Link
Source: Ars Technica – All content
