Name: ______Date:______Per:______

Subduction & Trenches

The Aleutian Islands

  1. What rock composed the tectonic plate that formed the Aleutian Islands?
  1. Name two pieces of data (observations) that conclude that the plates are both composed of the same type of rock:
  1. What is the name of the trench that is associated with the Aleutian Islands?

Andes Mountain Chain

  1. What is the name of the trench that associated with the Andes Mountains?
  1. The Andes mountains where created by the meeting of the Nazca Plate and the South American Plate.
  1. What is the rock that composes the Neza plate?
  1. What is the rock that composes the South American Plate?
  1. Of the two tectonic plates that formed the Andes Mountains, which plate sunk and which plate floated?
  1. Sunk:
  1. Floated:

The Caribbean Islands

  1. What is the name of the trench that is associated with the Caribbean islands?
  1. What rock(s) compose the plates that made this trench?

Japan

  1. What is the name of the trench that is associated with the island of Japan?
  1. Why is Japan so vulnerable to earthquakes?
  1. What does Japan being an island indicate about the composition of the two plates that formed it?

Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt or Cordillera Neovolcánica

  1. What is the name of the trench that associated with the Cordillera Neovolcánica?
  1. What is the name of the two plates that met to form the Cordillera Neovolcánica?
  1. Which of those two plates sunk?
  1. Why did that plate sink and not float?

Synthesis

  1. What is similar about the process that created the Aleutian Islands, the Andes Mountain Chain, the Carrabin Islands, Japan, and the South Pacific Islands?
  1. What is the evidence that supports the idea that all these areas where created by the same geological process?
  1. Why did this geological process form mountains in the Andes in one area but islands everywhere else?
  1. Looking back at your answers, how are trenches named?
  1. What makes the Marianas Trench unique?