| Cocos Plate |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT COCOS PLATE | |
| tectonic plates | |
| geography of central america | |
| galápagos islands | |
| geography of mexico | |
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The Cocos Plate is an oceanic Tectonic Plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America , named for Cocos Island , which rides upon it. The Cocos Plate is created by Sea Floor Spreading along the East Pacific Rise , specifically in a complicated area geologists call the Cocos-Nazca spreading system. From the rise the plate is pushed eastward and pushed or dragged (perhaps both) under the less dense overriding Caribbean Plate , in the process called Subduction . The subducted leading edge heats up and adds its water to the mantle above it. In the mantle layer called the Asthenosphere , mantle rock melts to make Magma . As a result, to the northeast of the subducting edge lies the continuous arc of Volcano s stretching from Costa Rica to Guatemala and a belt of earthquakes that extends farther north, into Mexico . The northeastern and eastern sides are Convergent Boundaries subducting under the North American Plate , the Caribbean Plate , and the South American Plate . The Cocos Plate is bounded by divergent boundaries to the south with the Nazca Plate and to the west with the Pacific Plate . The Cocos and Nazca Plates are the remnants of the former Farallon Plate , which broke up about 23 million years ago. The boundary between the plates is marked by a Hotspot under the Galapagos Islands . EXTERNAL LINKS
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