Japan's Proximity to Tectonic Plates


Japan is located at an intersection of four tectonic plates, part of the hotspot known as The Ring Of Fire. The plates in clockwise order are the Eurasian Plate (shaded green), the North American Plate (red), Pacific Plate (Yellow), and the Philippine Plate (purple)



The boundaries of all four plates surrounding Japan are convergent, meaning that the two plates push together which results in higher occurrences of earthquakes and explosive volcanoes. These particular plates are subduction zones, where one plate moves below the other plate into the Asthenosphere. As the plate is dragged down by gravity, the mantle melts the rock down into liquid magma which rises back up and leads to volcanic activity.
Volcanic Activity
Earthquake Activity
Subduction Zones



Images are taken from:
http://education.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?layers=69cb1f185afa47528708dbaa89e0729b&useExisting=1  (Image 1)

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/eoc/teachers/t_tectonics/p_map_plate_layers_bath.html   (Images 2-5)





Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 2, 2018 at 9:34 PM

    Good job on this weeks blog entry! My country also has earthquakes and volcanoes so this will be very interesting to learn about. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 2, 2018 at 10:51 PM

    I loved the pictures in the entry it was well assembled! Japan is one handful can't wait to learn about the volcanoes and how the process works. Really enjoyed it!

    ReplyDelete

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