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Image: Orogenic wedge

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Orogenic_wedge.jpg ‎(580 × 213 pixels, file size: 53 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Description: An illustration of the collision between two tectonic plates. One plate goes under the other, and the result is the buildup of a critical wedge of material. This orogenic wedge, or mountain-building wedge, maintains its slope by a stress balance between failures along the décollment, or main basal fault, and the faults inside the wedge.
Title: Orogenic wedge
Credit: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1624 - Online version 1.0: Migration of the Acadian Orogen and Foreland Basin Across the Northern Appalachians of Maine and Adjacent Areas: http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1624/
Author: Dwight C. Bradley, Robert D. Tucker, Daniel R. Lux, Anita G. Harris, and D. Colin McGregor
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No

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