Explain Why Ocean Floor Plates Subduct Beneath Continental Plates

When two oceanic plates meet the older plate subducts.

Explain why ocean floor plates subduct beneath continental plates.

This is accomplished at convergent plate boundaries also known as destructive plate boundaries where one plate descends at an angle that is is subducted beneath the other. Or the colliding plates may form a trench. As it moves away from the ridge it cools. When oceanic lithospheremeets continental lithosphere the continent always stays on top while the oceanic plate subducts.

Geologists explain that subduction occurs to oceanic plates because they are denser and cooler than continental plates. Oceanic lithosphere is formed hot and thin at mid ocean ridges and grows thick as more rock hardens underneath it. Two parallel mountain ranges commonly develop above such a subduction zone a coastal range consisting of sedimentary strata and hard rock lifted out of the sea accretionary wedge and a volcanic range farther inland volcanic arc. Because oceanic crust cools as it ages it eventually becomes denser than the underlying asthenosphere and so it has a tendency to subduct or dive under adjacent continental plates or younger sections of oceanic crust.

Subduction zones form where a plate with thinner less buoyant oceanic crust descends beneath a plate with thicker more buoyant continental crust. The oceanic plate is subducted under the continental plate because oceanic crust is much more dense than continental crust.