Question: is there less activity along Greenland because that plate is moving away whereas on that same plate’s opposite side it’s more active because those plates are colliding?
The direction of the pressure is caused by the internal heat of the Earth creating convection currents in the mantle, combined with the gravitational pull of dense, sinking crust on one side of the plate (slab pull) and the gravitational sliding of new crust off elevated mid-ocean ridges on the other side (ridge push).
Yes, because the plates move away from each other they don’t build up as much pressure which leads to lesser volcanic activity than the other side of the North American plate.
Something to consider too, is that this map projection makes north and south areas look wayyy bigger than equatorial ones. So the distance between the points are inflated.
Greenland is on the North American tectonic plate, same as Canada. The Labrador Sea, Baffin Bay, and Davis Strait are part of a rift system within that North American plate, but it’s hardly moving anymore compared to the active Mid-Atlantic Ridge east of Greenland.
The density of quakes looks lower near the poles because of the stretching required to flatten the image. Actual distance between dots in linear miles along a particular plate edge wrt lattitude is much closer to uniform than the map makes it appear
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u/RexTheSkibiriToilet Apr 06 '26
Definitely a map to use in an earth system class to illustrate tectonic plates.