accretionary wedge

British

noun

geology a body of deformed sediments, wedge-shaped in two dimensions or prism-shaped in three dimensions, that has been scraped off the surface of the oceanic lithosphere as it moves downwards beneath a continent or island arc. The sediments are added to the continental edge

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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Sediments and oceanic crust scraped off the descending plate piled up in an accretionary wedge, which created a forearc basin that trapped sediments eroded from Tibet.

From Scientific American

The accretionary wedge and the forearc sediments were thrust northward onto Tibet.

From Scientific American

This month’s Accretionary Wedge, hosted by the “Knowledge Flocs” Blog, asks for the interplay between geology and civilization – for example the interplay of warfare with the landscape.

From Scientific American

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023