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island arc

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island arc
n
(Earth Sciences / Physical Geography) an arc-shaped chain of islands, such as the Aleutian Islands or the Japanese Islands, usually lying at the edge of a Benioff zone, indicating volcanic activity where the oceanic lithosphere is descending into the earth's interior

island arc
A usually curved chain of volcanic islands bounded on the convex side by a deep oceanic trench. Island arcs form in the overriding tectonic plates of subduction zones as the result of rising melt from the downgoing plate. The arcs are curved because of the curvature of the Earth. The Aleutian Islands, in Alaska, are an island arc. An island arc is a kind of volcanic arc.


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Occasionally one ocean plate subducts beneath another and a chain of volcanic islands, known as an island arc, spring up in response.
Pinet and Tremblay (1995) proposed that emplacement of the Quebec ophiolites was caused by the collision of an island arc with the North American continent during the Ordovician.
1, Sumatera is like other islands of Indonesia, representing and island arc where the formation was related to the activity of subduction zone.
 
 
 
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