iceland sits atop the mid-atlantic ridge plate boundary.
iceland sits atop the mid-atlantic ridge plate boundary.
iceland sits atop what type of plate boundary?
the mid-atlantic ridge
the geological deformation of iceland is the way that the rocks of the island of iceland are changing due to tectonic forces. the geological deformation explains the location of earthquakes, volcanoes, fissures, and the shape of the island. iceland is the largest landmass (102,775 km²) situated on an oceanic ridge. it is an elevated plateau of the sea floor, situated at the crossing of the mid-atlantic ridge and the greenland-iceland-faeroe ridge. it lies along the oceanic divergent plate boundary of north american plate and eurasian plate. the western part of iceland sits on the north american plate and the eastern part sits on the eurasian plate. the reykjanes ridge of the mid-atlantic ridge system in this region crosses the island from southwest and connects to the kolbeinsey ridge in the northeast.
geological deformation of iceland
where plate boundaries occur within the continental lithosphere, deformation is spread out over a much larger area than the plate boundary itself. in the case of the san andreas fault continental transform, many earthquakes occur away from the plate boundary and are related to strains developed within the broader zone of deformation caused by major irregularities in the fault trace (e.g., the "big bend" region). the northridge earthquake was associated with movement on a blind thrust within such a zone. another example is the strongly oblique convergent plate boundary between the arabian and eurasian plates where it runs through the northwestern part of the zagros mountains. the deformation associated with this plate boundary is partitioned into nearly pure thrust sense movements perpendicular to the boundary over a wide zone to the southwest and nearly pure strike-slip motion along the main recent fault close to the actual plate boundary itself. this is demonstrated by earthquake focal mechanisms.
earthquake