micro plates

[sculptor]

Let us discuss the evolution of micro-plates from birth to growth to demise.

Are any of you up on this subject?
If so: Your thoughts?

 

[origin]

Are any of you up on this subject?

Nope. What's a micro-plate?

 

[sculptor]

Nope. What's a micro-plate?

Plate tectonics
We all know of the major plates
however, there are dozens ---to hundreds of microplates
(don't try and use google---it is a sales tool)
as/re one source, the great pacific plate was said to have evolved from a triangular microplate which grew and grew and grew
meanwhile many microplates remain microplates until they are subsumed or not
some are at the borders of 2 massive plates, and just it there spinning clockwise9(why)

happy hunting

 

[DaveC426913]

(don't try and use google---it is a sales tool)

Like us members, Google benefits greatly from context.

Googling 'micro plates tectonics' brings up useful results.

 

[origin]

Googling 'micro plates tectonics' brings up useful results.

If you google just "micro plates" all that comes up are very small weights for weight lifting, which seemed like a rather boring subject to discuss.

 

[exchemist]

The Victoria microplate in the African Rift Valley is rotating anticlockwise, apparently.

 

[James R]

sculptor:

Have you found out anything interesting about microplates, yourself, so far?

Is there something specific you'd like to talk about, regarding them?

 

[exchemist]

sculptor:

Have you found out anything interesting about microplates, yourself, so far?

Is there something specific you'd like to talk about, regarding them?

There was a question in the post about rotation of microplates.

There is a nice explanation of how they arise and why they rotate here: https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/gd/2021/01/20/rift-linkage-and-rotating-microplates/

It seems to be when there is too big an offset between sections of a spreading fault for them to be connected by a transform fault. A section between the two is pulled in opposite directions on opposite sides, by the two spreading sections, creating a tendency to rotate.

 

[Write4U]

If you google just "micro plates" all that comes up are very small weights for weight lifting, which seemed like a rather boring subject to discuss.

You need one more parameter. Ask Google about; microplates, physics

Microplate

Microplates are small mostly rigid areas of lithosphere, located at major plate boundaries but rotating as more or less independent plates. They can form in many tectonic settings. The two main types along mid-ocean ridges, those formed at and away from triple junctions, share many similarities.

Although it was once thought that stable growing microplates could eventually grow into major oceanic plates, it now appears that these are transient phenomena resulting from large-scale rift propagation that forms transient large-scale overlap zones.

The best-studied oceanic microplates are along the East Pacific Rise, the Easter microplate along the Pacific-Nazca ridge and the Juan Fernandez microplate at the Pacific-Nazca-Antarctica triple junction (Fig. 5). Despite their different tectonic settings, they show many striking similarities.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/microplate