SME
Oceanography · Problem type
Active or passive margin
Use this for “A coast has a deep trench just offshore and volcanoes inland. Is it an active or a passive margin?”
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Which kind of margin is it?
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Where a continent meets the ocean floor, a plate boundary or none sets what the coast looks like.
Assumptions
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An active margin sits on a plate boundary, most often where ocean floor sinks under the continent.
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A passive margin is inside one plate: the old rift edge where the ocean first opened.
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Transform margins, such as coastal California, are left out here.
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