The Gorda plate, located beneath the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

off the coast of northern

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, is one of the northern remnants of the Farallon plate. It is sometimes referred to (by, for example, publications from the

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...

Earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

Hazards Program) as simply the southernmost portion of the neighboring Juan de Fuca plate, another Farallon remnant. Unlike most

tectonic plates Plate tectonics (, ) is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of , an idea developed durin ...

, the Gorda plate experiences significant intraplate deformation inside its boundaries. Numerous faults have been mapped in both the sediments and basement of the Gorda Basin, which is in the interior of the plate south of 41.6°N. Stresses from the neighboring North American plate and Pacific plate cause frequent earthquakes in the interior of the plate, including the 1980 Eureka earthquake (also known as the Gorda Basin event). The easterly side is the Cascadia subduction zone where the plate subducts under the North American plate in northern California. The southerly side is a transform boundary with the Pacific plate along the Mendocino Fault. The westerly side is a

divergent boundary In plate tectonics, a divergent boundary or divergent plate boundary (also known as a constructive boundary or an extensional boundary) is a linear feature that exists between two List of tectonic plates, tectonic plates that are moving away fr ...

with the Pacific plate forming the Gorda Ridge. This ridge provides morphological evidence of differing spreading rates, with the northern portion of the ridge being narrow, and the southern portion being wide. The northerly side is a transform boundary with the Juan de Fuca plate, the Blanco fracture zone. The subducting Gorda plate is connected with the

volcanoes A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

in northern California, namely,

Mount Shasta Mount Shasta ( ; Shasta people, Shasta: ''Waka-nunee-Tuki-wuki''; Karuk language, Karuk: ''Úytaahkoo'') is a Volcano#Volcanic activity, potentially active stratovolcano at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California. A ...

and Lassen Peak. Lassen Peak last erupted in 1914–1917.

References

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate degree programs and a variety of graduate and doctor ...

Tectonic plates Geologic provinces of California Geology of the Pacific Ocean {{tectonics-stub

See also

References

Further reading

External links