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Island-Arcs

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The Pulse of the Earth

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Abstract

Island-arcs are among the most challenging features of the earth’s surface. Island-arcs border the eastern margin of Asia and appear in the West Indies and the so-called Southern Antilles which form a discontinuous festoon between South America and Antarctica. At the same time these arcuate structures represent one of the most intricate problems of structural and historical geology. When considering a geographical globe, one wonders how these remarkable island-festoons have developed into their actual shapes. A further question which arises is, why similar features are conspicuously absent from other areas such as e.g. the eastern border of the Pacific, the entire African continent, Europe, Greenland and Australia with the exception of its northern part. On the other hand a geological examination of the earth’s surface shows that arcuate structures are by no means confined to certain border-regions of continental and oceanic areas. A single glance at Plates 1–5 shows that they form one of the most conspicuous features in the structural pattern of such continents as Asia and Europe. To some extent they also played an important part in the geological history of North and South America and eastern Australia. Again we are struck by the fact that they are lacking in some other continental areas, at least since Cambrian times, i.e. since the moment from which the surface history of the continents can be deciphered to some appreciable degree, thus far.

“The inward buckling of the main crust, as has been assumed in the East Indies, has been a rather common occurrence in the history of the earth’ crust”. (F.A. Vening Meinesz)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Holland, Netherlands

    J. H. F. Umbgrove D.Sc.(Leyden) (Hon. F.R.S.E.; Hon. Memb. N.Y. Ac. Sc. Memb. R. Netherl. Ac. Sc., Professor of Geology at Delft)

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  1. J. H. F. Umbgrove D.Sc.(Leyden)
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© 1971 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands

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Umbgrove, J.H.F. (1971). Island-Arcs. In: The Pulse of the Earth. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3017-5_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3017-5_7

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