The Great Glen - Scotland's San Andreas Fault скачать в хорошем качестве

The Great Glen - Scotland's San Andreas Fault

Geology would be much more simple it the Earth was flat - but, as we know it is a sphere! One of the consequences of this is that oblique subduction results in not one, but two major fault systems. One contains pure vertical motion - the subduction zone - and the other, in the overriding plate (inland in the case of ocean-continent convergence), accommodates the horizontal motion component in major strike-slip faults. We see this happening along the Pacific coast of the USA, where the Pacific plate subducts beneath the American plate. The oblique component is accommodated along the San Andreas fault. Something very similar happend in Scotland 450 million years ago as the Iapetus Ocean subducted beneath Baltica. Late stage convergence was oblique, resultuing in partitioning of motion onto the Moine thrust system (vertical) and the Great Glen fault (horizontal). Explaining WHY all this happens would take much more than a minute, but might make a good one-minute-plus video sometime.