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Mariana Islands, an oceanic island arc

Cascade Volcanic Arc, a continental volcanic arc

A volcanic arc is chain of volcanic islands or mountains formed by plate tectonics as an oceanic tectonic plate subducts under another tectonic plate and produces magma. There are two types of volcanic arcs: oceanic arcs (commonly called island arcs, a type of archipelago) and continental arcs. In the former, oceanic crust subducts beneath other oceanic crust on an adjacent plate, while in the latter case the oceanic crust subducts beneath continental crust. In some situations, a single subduction zone may show both aspects along its length, as part of a plate subducts beneath a continent and part beneath adjacent oceanic crust.

Two classic examples of oceanic island arcs are the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific Ocean and the Lesser Antilles in the western Atlantic Ocean. The Cascade Volcanic Arc in western North America and the Andes along the western edge of South America are examples of continental volcanic arcs. The best examples of volcanic arcs with both sets of characteristics are in the North Pacific, with the Aleutian Arc consisting of the Aleutian Islands and their extension the Aleutian Range on the Alaska Peninsula, and the Kuril-Kamchatka Arc comprising the Kuril Islands and southern Kamchatka Peninsula.

In the subduction zone, loss of volatiles from the subducted slab induces partial melting of the overriding mantle and generates low-density, calc-alkaline magma that buoyantly rises to intrude and be extruded through the lithosphere of the overriding plate.

On the subducting side of the island arc is a deep and narrow oceanic trench, which is the trace at the Earth’s surface of the boundary between the downgoing and overriding plates. This trench is created by the gravitational pull of the relatively dense subducting plate pulling the leading edge of the plate downward. Multiple earthquakes occur along this subduction boundary with the seismic hypocenters located at increasing depth under the island arc: these quakes define the Wadati-Benioff zones.

Ocean basins that are being reduced by subduction are called 'remnant oceans' as they will slowly be shrunken out of existence and crushed in the subsequent orogenic collision. This process has happened over and over in the geologic history of the Earth.

The Aleutian Arc, with both oceanic and continental parts.

• Cascade Volcanic Arc
• Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Range
• Kamchatka
• Andes

• Aleutian Islands
• Kuril Islands
• Japan and Ryukyu Islands
• Izu Islands and Bonin Islands
• Philippines
• Mariana Islands
• Tonga and Kermadec Islands
• Ogasawara Islands
• Crete and Dodecanese
• Andaman and Nicobar Islands
• Mentawai Islands
• Sunda Arc
• Lesser Sunda Islands
• Tanimbar and Kai Islands
• Solomon Islands
• Lesser Antilles, including the Leeward Antilles
• South Sandwich Islands

• Insular Islands
• Intermontane Islands

• Back-arc basin
• Volcanic belt

• Subduction Zone Volcanism
• Tectonics and Volcanoes of Japan
• USGS: Island-Arc, Oceanic, and Continental Volcanoes