Nazca Plate

The Nazca plate is one of the smaller lithospheric plates that make up the Earth's crust and the uppermost part of the mantle are built. The tectonic plates play an essential role for the large-scale geological processes on Earth. The plate is named after the Peruvian port city of Nazca.

The Nazca plate is located off the west coast of South America and belongs to the oceanic plates, which are covered up to a few small islands such as the Juan Fernández Islands entirely from the sea. The plate moves eastward and collides there with the South American plate, a continental plate. During the collision of these two plates, the Nazca plate is pushed under the South American continent and dived from there down to the lower mantle; it formed a subduction zone. Typical of these zones are the deep earthquakes whose hypocenters may lie in depths of 320-720 km. To deep-sea trenches formed at the boundary between the two plates as the Atacama Trench (up to 8065 m depth) in the south and the Peru trench (up to 6369 m deep) in the northern part of the South American west coast. At the same time the South American continent was raised. As a result of this shift plate is also how the orogeny: Along the entire west coast of South America, a mountain -folded, the Andes with an altitude of up to 6962 m.

The Andes are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area the strongest seismic and volcanic activity. The highest volcanoes in the world are here: The 6882 m high Monte Pissis (Argentina ) and the 6887 m high Ojos del Salado (Chile). Post-volcanic phenomena, such solfataras, geysers and fumaroles are widespread.

In the north of the Nazca Plate adjacent to the Cocos, in the west it is bounded by the Pacific Plate and the south by the Antarctic Plate. In the east it abuts the South American continent and is subducted there.

Plate tectonic

Crust (geology) Mantle (geology) Peru–Chile Trench Cocos Plate Explorer Plate Caroline Plate

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