Plate Motion and Seismicity
The motion of the adjacent plates of the foreland basin can be determined by studying the active deformation zone with which it is connected. Today GPS measurements provide the rate at which one plate is moving relative to another. It is also important to consider that present day kinematics are unlikely to be the same as when deformation began. Thus, it is crucial to consider non-GPS models to determine the long-term evolution of continental collisions and in how it helped develop the adjacent foreland basins.
Comparing both modern GPS (Sella et al. 2002) and non-GPS models allows deformation rates to be calculated. Comparing these numbers to the geologic regime helps constrain the number of probable models as well as which model is more geologically accurate within a specific region.
Seismicity determines where active zones of seismic activity occur as well as measure the total fault displacements and the timing of the onset of deformation (Allen et al. 2004).
Read more about this topic: Foreland Basin
Famous quotes containing the words plate and/or motion:
“I sometimes have the sense that I live my life as a writer with my nose pressed against the wide, shiny plate glass window of the “mainstream” culture. The world seems full of straight, large-circulation, slick periodicals which wouldn’t think of reviewing my book and bookstores which will never order it.”
—Jan Clausen (b. 1943)
“We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will, therefore, always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in pursuit of it. No, we are complicated machines; and though we have one main spring that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometime stop that motion.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)