GEOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Long, deep caverns below the ocean’s surface are known as ocean trenches, which form when the subducting plate descends into the mantle creating a deep valley. Oceanic-continental convergent boundaries produce ocean trenches, as demonstrated along the west coast of South America.

Detailed explanation-2: -Introduction to Subduction Zones The most powerful earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and landslides occur in subduction zones where tectonic plates collide and one plate is thrust beneath another.

Detailed explanation-3: -Where do subduction zones typically occur? Subduction zones occur in a horseshoe shape around the edge of the Pacific Ocean, offshore of Washington state, Canada, Alaska, Russia, Japan and Indonesia and down to New Zealand and the southern edge of South America, according to NOAA (opens in new tab).

Detailed explanation-4: -A subduction zone is a region in which a portion of a tectonic plate sinks beneath another plate into the Earth’s interior. Subduction zones are defined by deep oceanic trenches, lines of volcanoes parallel to the trenches, and zones of large earthquakes that extend from the trenches landward.

Detailed explanation-5: -Trenches are formed by subduction, a geophysical process in which two or more of Earth’s tectonic plates converge and the older, denser plate is pushed beneath the lighter plate and deep into the mantle, causing the seafloor and outermost crust (the lithosphere) to bend and form a steep, V-shaped depression.