Plate tectonics in the context of "Mount Mazama"

An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been part of a continent. Oceanic islands can be formed from volcanic activity, grow into atolls from coral reefs, and form from sediment along shorelines, creating barrier islands. River islands can also form from sediment and debris in rivers. Artificial islands are those made by humans, including small rocky outcroppings built out of lagoons and large-scale land reclamation projects used for development.

Islands are host to diverse plant and animal life. Oceanic islands have the sea as a natural barrier to the introduction of new species, causing the species that do reach the island to evolve in isolation. Continental islands share animal and plant life with the continent they split from. Depending on how long ago the continental island formed, the life on that island may have diverged greatly from the mainland due to natural selection.

Iceland is a Nordic island country between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean, located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Europe and North America. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the region's westernmost and most sparsely populated country. Its capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which is home to about 36% of the country's roughly 390,000 residents (excluding nearby towns/suburbs, which are separate municipalities). The official language of the country is Icelandic. Iceland is on a rift between tectonic plates, and its geologic activity includes geysers and frequent volcanic eruptions. The interior consists of a volcanic plateau with sand and lava fields, mountains and glaciers, and many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate, despite being at a latitude just south of the Arctic Circle. Its latitude and marine influence keep summers chilly, and most of its islands have a polar climate.

According to the Landnámabók, an ancient manuscript, the settlement of Iceland began in 874 AD, when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the island's first permanent settler. In following centuries, Norwegians and to a lesser extent other Scandinavians, immigrated to Iceland, bringing with them thralls (i.e., slaves or serfs) of Gaelic origin. The island was governed as an independent commonwealth under the native parliament, the Althing, one of the world's oldest functioning legislative assemblies. After a period of civil strife, Iceland acceded to Norwegian rule in the 13th century. In 1397, Iceland followed Norway's integration into the Kalmar Union along with the kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden, coming under de facto Danish rule upon its dissolution in 1523. The Danish kingdom introduced Lutheranism by force in 1550, and the Treaty of Kiel formally ceded Iceland to Denmark in 1814.

The South Aegean Volcanic Arc is a volcanic arc in the South Aegean Sea formed by plate tectonics. The prior cause was the subduction of the African plate beneath the Eurasian plate, raising the Aegean arc across what is now the North Aegean Sea. In the Holocene, the process of back-arc extension began, probably stimulated by pressure from the Arabian plate compressing the region behind the arc. The extension deformed the region into its current configuration. First, the arc moved to the south and assumed its arcuate configuration. Second, the Aegean Sea opened behind the arc because the crust was thinned and weakened there. Third, magma broke through the thinned crust to form a second arc composed of a volcanic chain. And finally, the Aegean Sea plate broke away from Eurasia in the new fault zone to the north.

The extension is still ongoing. The current southern Aegean is one of the most rapidly deforming regions of the Himalayan-Alpine mountain belt. It is approximately 450 km long and 20 km to 40 km wide and runs from the Isthmus of Corinth on the Greek mainland to the Bodrum peninsula on the Turkish mainland.

Tectonic subsidence is the sinking of the Earth's crust on a large scale, relative to crustal-scale features or the geoid. The movement of crustal plates and accommodation spaces produced by faulting brought about subsidence on a large scale in a variety of environments, including passive margins, aulacogens, fore-arc basins, foreland basins, intercontinental basins and pull-apart basins. Three mechanisms are common in the tectonic environments in which subsidence occurs: extension, cooling and loading.

In biogeography, a land bridge is an isthmus or wider land connection between otherwise separate areas, over which animals and plants are able to cross and colonize new lands. A land bridge can be created by marine regression, in which sea levels fall, exposing shallow, previously submerged sections of continental shelf; or when new land is created by plate tectonics; or occasionally when the sea floor rises due to post-glacial rebound after an ice age.

Geology is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical bodies, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. The name comes from Ancient Greek γῆ (gê) 'earth' and λoγία (-logía) 'study of, discourse'. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth sciences, including hydrology. It is integrated with Earth system science and planetary science.

Geology describes the structure of the Earth on and beneath its surface and the processes that have shaped that structure. Geologists study the mineralogical composition of rocks in order to get insight into their history of formation. Geology determines the relative ages of rocks found at a given location; geochemistry (a branch of geology) determines their absolute ages. By combining various petrological, crystallographic, and paleontological tools, geologists are able to chronicle the geological history of the Earth as a whole. One aspect is to demonstrate the age of the Earth. Geology provides evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and the Earth's past climates.

Marine chemistry, also known as ocean chemistry or chemical oceanography, is the study of the chemical composition and processes of the world’s oceans, including the interactions between seawater, the atmosphere, the seafloor, and marine organisms. This field encompasses a wide range of topics, such as the cycling of elements like carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, the behavior of trace metals, and the study of gases and nutrients in marine environments. Marine chemistry plays a crucial role in understanding global biogeochemical cycles, ocean circulation, and the effects of human activities, such as pollution and climate change, on oceanic systems. It is influenced by plate tectonics and seafloor spreading, turbidity, currents, sediments, pH levels, atmospheric constituents, metamorphic activity, and ecology.

The impact of human activity on the chemistry of the Earth's oceans has increased over time, with pollution from industry and various land-use practices significantly affecting the oceans. Moreover, increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere have led to ocean acidification, which has negative effects on marine ecosystems. The international community has agreed that restoring the chemistry of the oceans is a priority, and efforts toward this goal are tracked as part of Sustainable Development Goal 14.

The Phanerozoic is the current and the latest of the four geologic eons in the Earth's geologic time scale, covering the time period from 542 million years ago to the present. It is the eon during which abundant animal and plant life has proliferated, diversified and colonized various niches on the Earth's surface, beginning with the Cambrian period when animals first developed hard shells that can be clearly preserved in the fossil record. The time before the Phanerozoic, collectively called the Precambrian, is now divided into the Hadean, Archaean and Proterozoic eons.

The time span of the Phanerozoic starts with the sudden appearance of fossilised evidence of a number of animal phyla; the evolution of those phyla into diverse forms; the evolution of plants; the evolution of fish, arthropods and molluscs; the terrestrial colonization and evolution of insects, chelicerates, myriapods and tetrapods; and the development of modern flora dominated by vascular plants. During this time span, tectonic forces which move the continents had collected them into a single landmass known as Pangaea (the most recent supercontinent), which then separated into the current continental landmasses.

Southeast Asia is the geographical southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of mainland Australia, which is part of Oceania. Southeast Asia is bordered to the north by East Asia, to the west by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal, to the east by Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and to the south by Australia and the Indian Ocean. Apart from the British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of 26 atolls of the Maldives in South Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia is the only other subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. Mainland Southeast Asia is entirely in the Northern Hemisphere. Timor-Leste and the southern portion of Indonesia are the parts of Southeast Asia that lie south of the equator.

The region lies near the intersection of geological plates, with both heavy seismic and volcanic activities. The Sunda plate is the main plate of the region, featuring almost all Southeast Asian countries except Myanmar, northern Thailand, northern Laos, northern Vietnam, and northern Luzon of the Philippines, while the Sunda plate only includes western Indonesia to as far east as the Indonesian province of Bali. The mountain ranges in Myanmar, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, and the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali, Lesser Sunda Islands, and Timor are part of the Alpide belt, while the islands of the Philippines and Indonesia as well as Timor-Leste are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Both seismic belts meet in Indonesia, causing the region to have relatively high occurrences of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, particularly in the Philippines and Indonesia.