Sentences with phrase «oceanic crust when»

Magma from the mantle forms oceanic crust when it rises from the mantle to the surface at spreading centers and cools into the rock that forms the very bottom of the seafloor.

Not exact matches

«When crust from an oceanic tectonic plate plunges beneath a continental tectonic plate, as it does beneath the Andean Plateau, it brings water with it and partially melts the mantle, the layer below Earth's crust,» said Rice University's Jonathan Delph, co-author of the new study published online this week in Scientific Reports.

When the Pacific plate lunged beneath the islands in the first of those quakes, it left the oceanic crust under tension.

And the oceanic crust has what appears to be a thick underplating of rock formed when magma that was working its way toward the surface became trapped under the crust and cooled — very much like the processes that occur under the Hawaiian Islands.

In particular, the researchers found that a higher ratio of uranium - 238 to uranium - 235 is incorporated into the modern oceanic crust, when compared to the uranium isotope signature found in meteorites.