island arc

noun

1. a curved chain of islands, as the Aleutians or Antilles, usually convex toward the ocean and enclosing a deep-sea basin.

island arc

noun

1. an arc-shaped chain of islands, such as the Aleutian Islands or the Japanese Islands, usually lying at the edge of a Benioff zone, indicating volcanic activity where the oceanic lithosphere is descending into the earth's interior

island arc

1. A usually curved chain of volcanic islands bounded on the convex side by a deep oceanic trench. Island arcs form in the overriding tectonic plates of subduction zones as the result of rising melt from the downgoing plate. The arcs are curved because of the curvature of the Earth. The Aleutian Islands, in Alaska, are an island arc. An island arc is a kind of volcanic arc.

Word History and Origins

Origin of island arc¹

First recorded in 1905–10

Example Sentences

Interestingly, the amber from Myanmar is thought to have formed on an ancient island arc.

From BBC

The Kermadec Island arc sits from 800-1,000km off the coast of New Zealand's North Island.

From Reuters

Dr. van Hinsbergen does not find the island arc hypothesis compelling, and Dr. Aitchison is equally unconvinced by the suggestion of India breaking in two before colliding with Asia.

From New York Times

Dr. Jagoutz and Leigh H. Royden, a professor of geology and geophysics at M.I.T. looking at rocks in the western Himalaya, have come to a conclusion similar to Dr. Aitchison’s — that India ran into an island arc before it hit Asia — though they put the second collision about five million years earlier.

From New York Times

With an island arc between Asia and India, there would have been two subduction zones pulling on India, which could explain the high velocity of India.

From New York Times