Island arcs, which arise from volcanic activity along subduction zones where one tectonic plate dives beneath another, play a crucial role in the formation of the continental crust.

Subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the North American Plate creating the Aleutian trench and volcanic island arc (Credit: Alaska Volcano Observatory). Click image for a larger view.

Fiji and Vanuatu started out as close neighbors and ended up 800 miles apart on separate sections of what had once been a continuous arc. Island arcs form where a plate of the oceanic crust sinks ...

The Andaman-Nicobar Basin (AN Basin), nestled in the southeastern expanse of the Bay of Bengal, represents a frontier of ...

Since these islands are largely volcanic, they are also the source of the geologic term "volcanic arc". These arcs are the volcanic expression of subduction zones (more on that later). The Western ...

Geological and geochemical background. Located in the southwest Pacific ocean, the ~2,600-km-long Tonga–Kermadec arc is the most linear, fastest converging and most seismically active subduction ...

Subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives underneath another, drive the world’s most devastating earthquakes and tsunamis. How do these danger zones come to be? A study in Geology presents ...

When a seamount enters a subduction zone, it has a major affect on forearc morphology, the uplift history of the island arc, and the structure of the downgoing slab. It is not known, however, what ...

Tectonic plates can spread subduction like a contagion — jumping from one oceanic plate to another 'Pulsing, like a heartbeat': Rhythmic mantle plume rising beneath Ethiopia is creating a new ocean ...

Island arcs, which arise from volcanic activity along subduction zones where one tectonic plate dives beneath another, play a crucial role in the formation of the continental crust.

Island arcs form where a plate of the oceanic crust sinks beneath an adjacent plate in a process known as subduction, giving rise to a belt of volcanoes parallel to the trench where the descending ...