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Malpelo is a small island in the eastern Pacific Ocean, located about 500 km (310 mi) west of the Colombian mainland with a military post manned by the Colombian Armed Forces. It consists of a sheer and barren rock with three high peaks, the highest being Cerro de la Mona with a height of 300 m (980 ft). The island is about 1.5 kilometres in length from northeast to southwest, and 640 metres in width.
A mid-ocean ridge (MOR) is a seafloor mountain system formed by plate tectonics. It typically has a depth of ~ 2,600 meters (8,500 ft) and rises about two kilometers above the deepest portion of an ocean basin. This feature is where seafloor spreading takes place along a divergent plate boundary. The rate of seafloor spreading determines the morphology of the crest of the mid-ocean ridge and its width in an ocean basin. The production of new seafloor and oceanic lithosphere results from mantle upwelling in response to plate separation. The melt rises as magma at the linear weakness between the separating plates, and emerges as lava, creating new oceanic crust and lithosphere upon cooling. The first discovered mid-ocean ridge was the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is a spreading center that bisects the North and South Atlantic basins; hence the origin of the name 'mid-ocean ridge'. Most oceanic spreading centers are not in the middle of their hosting ocean basis but regardless, are traditionally called mid-ocean ridges. Mid-ocean ridges around the globe are linked by plate tectonic boundaries and the trace of the ridges across the ocean floor appears similar to the seam of a baseball. The mid-ocean ridge system thus is the longest mountain range on Earth, reaching about 65,000 km (40,000 mi).
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The Carnegie Ridge is an aseismic ridge on the Nazca Plate that is being subducted beneath the South American Plate. The ridge is thought to be a result of the passage of the Nazca Plate over the Galapagos hotspot. It is named for the research vessel Carnegie, which discovered it in 1929.
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The North Andes Plate or North Andes Block is a small tectonic plate (microplate) located in the northern Andes. It is squeezed between the faster moving South American Plate and the Nazca Plate to the southwest. Due to the subduction of the Malpelo and Coiba Plates, this area is very prone to volcanic and seismic activity, with many historic earthquakes.
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The Chagos–Laccadive Ridge (CLR), also known as the Chagos–Laccadive Plateau, is a prominent volcanic ridge and oceanic plateau extending between the Northern and the Central Indian Ocean.
The 1979 Tumaco earthquake occurred at 02:59 local time on 12 December with a moment magnitude of 8.2 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The epicenter was just offshore from the border between Ecuador and Colombia, near the port city of Tumaco. It triggered a major tsunami, which was responsible for most of the estimated 300–600 deaths. The hardest hit area was Colombia's Nariño Department.
The Tasman Front is a relatively warm water east-flowing surface current and thermal boundary that separates the Coral Sea to the north and the Tasman Sea to the south. The name was proposed by Denham and Crook in 1976, to describe a thermal front that extends from Australia and New Zealand between the Coral Sea and Tasman Sea. Originating in the edge of the East Australian Current (EAC), the Tasman Front meanders eastward between longitudes 152° E and 164° E and latitudes 31° S and 37° S, then reattaches to the coastline at New Zealand, forming the East Auckland Current.
The Malpelo Plate is a small tectonic plate (microplate) located off the coasts west of Ecuador and Colombia. It is the 57th plate to be identified. It is named after Malpelo Island, the only emerged part of the plate. It is bounded on the west by the Cocos Plate, on the south by the Nazca Plate, on the east by the North Andes Plate, and on the north by the Coiba Plate, separated by the Coiba Transform Fault (CTF). This microplate was previously assumed to be part of the Nazca Plate. The Malpelo Plate borders three major faults of Pacific Colombia, the north to south striking Bahía Solano Fault in the north and the Naya-Micay and Remolino-El Charco Faults in the south.
The Bahía Solano Fault, Utría Fault or Utría-Bahía Solano Fault is a westward dipping thrust fault in the department of Chocó on the Pacific Coast of Colombia. The fault has a total length of 290.6 kilometres (180.6 mi) and runs along an average north-south strike of 347 ± 13 from the Panama-Colombia border to Bajo Baudó. The fault is partly offshore in the bays of Solano and Utría and crosses the Chocó Basin and the coastal Serranía del Baudó. Movement of the fault produced the Mw 6.5 1970 Bahía Solano earthquake.
The Coiba Plate is a small tectonic plate (microplate) located off the coasts south of Panama and northwestern Colombia. It is named after Coiba, the largest island of Central America, just north of the plate offshore southern Panama. It is bounded on the west by the Cocos Plate, on the south by the Malpelo Plate, on the east by the North Andes Plate, and on the north by the Panama Plate. This microplate was previously assumed to be part of the Nazca Plate, forming the northeastern tongue of the Nazca Plate together with the Malpelo Plate. Bordering the Coiba Plate on the east are the north-south striking Bahía Solano Fault and east of that, the Serranía de Baudó, an isolated mountain chain in northwestern Chocó, Colombia.
The geology of Socotra is part of the national geology of Yemen. Ancient Precambrian metamorphic rocks are intruded by younger igneous rocks, overlain by limestones and other marine sediments that deposited during marine transgression periods in the Cretaceous and the past 66 million years of the Cenozoic. The island is on the Somali Plate, which rifted away from the Arabian mainland within the past 60 million years.
The geology of Panama includes the complex tectonic interplay between the Pacific, Cocos and Nazca plates, the Caribbean Plate and the Panama Microplate.
References
- ↑ Lonsdale, Peter; Fornari, Daniel (1980). "Submarine geology of Malpelo Ridge, Panama Basin". Marine Geology . 36 (1–2): 65–83. Bibcode:1980MGeol..36...65L. doi:10.1016/0025-3227(80)90041-9.
- 1 2 Marcaillou, Boris; Charvis, Philippe; Collot, Jean-Yves (2006). "Structure of the Malpelo Ridge (Colombia) from seismic and gravity modelling". Marine Geophysical Researches. 27 (4): 289–300. Bibcode:2006MarGR..27..289M. doi:10.1007/s11001-006-9009-y.
Major South American geological features | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tectonic plates |  | ||||
| Cratons and shields | |||||
| Structures undergoing subduction | |||||
| Faults and shear zones | |||||
| Rifts and grabens | |||||
| Sedimentary basins | |||||
| Orogenies | |||||
| Metallogenetic provinces | |||||
| Volcanism |
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