Cocos Plate

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Cocos Plate

The Cocos Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate

Tectonic Plate

#REDIRECT Plate tectonics...
beneath the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portugal explorer Ferdinand Magellan....
off the west coast of Central America

Central America

Central America is a central geography region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmus portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast....
, named for Cocos Island

Cocos Island

Cocos Island is an island located off the shore of Costa Rica. It constitutes the 11th district of Puntarenas Canton of the province of Puntarenas....
, which rides upon it.

The Cocos Plate is created by sea floor spreading along the East Pacific Rise

East Pacific Rise

The East Pacific Rise is a mid-oceanic ridge, a divergent tectonic plate boundary located along the floor of the Pacific Ocean. It separates the Pacific Plate to the west from the North American Plate, the Rivera Plate, the Cocos Plate, the Nazca Plate, and the Antarctic Plate....
and the Cocos Ridge, specifically in a complicated area geologists call the Cocos-Nazca spreading system.

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Encyclopedia

The Cocos Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate

Tectonic Plate

#REDIRECT Plate tectonics...
beneath the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

Central America

Cocos Island

East Pacific Rise

Caribbean Plate

The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic crust tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the north coast of South America....
, in the process called subduction

Subduction

In geology, subduction is the process that takes place at convergent boundary by which one tectonic plate moves under another tectonic plate, sinking into the Earth's mantle, as the plates converge....
. The subducted leading edge heats up and adds its water to the mantle above it. In the mantle layer called the asthenosphere

Asthenosphere

The asthenosphere is the mechanically weak ductily-deforming region of the upper Mantle of the Earth. It lies below the lithosphere, at depths between 100 and 200 km below the surface, but perhaps extending as deep as 400 km ....
, mantle rock melts to make magma

Magma

Magma is molten Rock that is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and may also exist on other terrestrial planets. Besides molten rock, magma may also contain suspended crystals and gas bubbles....
, trapping superheated water

Superheated water

Superheated water is liquid water under pressure at temperatures between the usual boiling point and the critical temperature . It is also known as subcritical water and pressurised hot water....
under great pressure. As a result, to the northeast of the subducting edge lies the continuous arc of volcano

Volcano

A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet's surface or Crust , which allows hot, molten rock, ash, and gases to escape from below the surface....
s stretching from Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
to Guatemala

Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize and the Caribbean to the northeast, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast....
and a belt of earthquakes that extends farther north, into Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federalism constitutionalism republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico....
.

The northern boundary of the Cocos Plate is the Middle America Trench

Middle America Trench

The Middle America Trench is a major subduction zone, an oceanic trench in the eastern Pacific Ocean off the southwestern coast of Middle America , stretching from central Mexico to Costa Rica....
. The eastern boundary is a transform fault

Transform fault

A transform fault or transform boundary is a Fault which runs along the boundary of a tectonic plate. The relative motion of such plates is Horizontal plane in either sinistral or dextral direction....
, the Panama Fracture Zone

Panama Fracture Zone

The Panama Fracture Zone is a major, active right lateral-moving transform fault and associated inactive fracture zone which forms part of the tectonic boundary between the Cocos Plate and the Nazca Plate....
. The southern boundary is a mid-oceanic ridge, the Galapagos Rise

Galapagos Rise

The Galapagos Rise is a divergent boundary located between the South American coast and the triple junction of the Nazca Plate, the Cocos Plate, and the Pacific Plate....
. The western boundary is another mid-ocean ridge, the East Pacific Rise

East Pacific Rise

Farallon Plate

The Farallon Plate was an ancient oceanic plate, which began subducting under the west coast of the North American Plate— then located in modern Utah— as Pangaea broke apart during the Jurassic period....
, which broke up about 23 million years ago. A hotspot

Hotspot (geology)

In geology, a hotspot is a location on the Earth's surface that has experienced active volcano for a long period of time. J. Tuzo Wilson came up with the idea in 1963 that volcanic chains like the Hawaiian Islands result from the slow movement of a tectonic plate across a "fixed" hot spot deep beneath the surface of the planet....
under the Galapagos Islands

Galápagos Islands

Gal?pagos Islands are an archipelago of Island#Volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, 972 km west of continental Ecuador....
lies along the Galapagos Rise. (see Galapagos hotspot

Galápagos hotspot

Gal?pagos hotspot is a volcano hotspot responsible for the formation of the Gal?pagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It lies below a section of the Galapagos Rise, the divergent boundary located between the South American coast and the triple junction of the Nazca Plate, the Cocos Plate, and the Pacific Plate ....
)

The Rivera Plate

Rivera Plate

The Rivera Plate is a small tectonic plate located off the west coast of Mexico, just south of the Baja California Peninsula. It is bounded on the northwest by the East Pacific Rise, on the southwest by the Rivera Transform Fault, on the southeast by a deformation zone, and on the northeast by the Middle America Trench and another deformati...
north of the Cocos Plate, is thought to have separated from the Cocos Plate 5-10 million years ago. The boundary between the two plates appears to lack a definite transform fault, yet they are regarded as distinct.

The devastating 1985 Mexico City earthquake

1985 Mexico City earthquake

The 1985 Mexico City earthquake was a magnitude 8.1 earthquake that struck Mexico on 19 September 1985 at 7:19 local time, causing the deaths of about 10,000 people and serious damage in the Mexico City....
was a result of the subduction of the Cocos Plate beneath the North American Plate.

External links

: reconstructing its geological evolution