Zone ‘a’ represents plastic deformation of oceanic crust plunging into the trench. Flexural bending of oceanic crust creates topographic bulge, causing regional positive gravity anomaly of +500 gu. Zone ‘b’ is the contact of oceanic and continental crust. Compressive forces are built in the overriding crust and extensional regime develops landward on continental crust. As the plate descending to zone ‘c’, the interaction with asthenosphere produces deformation due to unbending of the slab. This mechanism leads to internal deformation of oceanic crust. | Zone ‘a’ represents plastic deformation of oceanic crust plunging into the trench. Flexural bending of oceanic crust creates topographic bulge, causing regional positive gravity anomaly of +500 gu. Zone ‘b’ is the contact of oceanic and continental crust. Compressive forces are built in the overriding crust and extensional regime develops landward on continental crust. As the plate descending to zone ‘c’, the interaction with asthenosphere produces deformation due to unbending of the slab. This mechanism leads to internal deformation of oceanic crust. |