Island Arc

island arc, long, curved chain of oceanic islands associated with intense volcanic and seismic activity and orogenic (mountain-building) processes. Prime examples of this form of geologic feature include the Aleutian-Alaska Arc and the Kuril-Kamchatka Arc.

Most island arcs consist of two parallel, arcuate rows of islands. The inner row of such a double arc is composed of a string of explosive volcanoes, while the outer row is made up of nonvolcanic islands. In the case of single arcs, many of the constituent islands are volcanically active.

An island arc typically has a land mass or a partially enclosed, unusually shallow sea on its concave side. Along the convex side there almost invariably exists a long, narrow deep-sea trench. The greatest ocean depths are found in these depressions of the seafloor, as in the case of the Mariana and Tonga trenches.

Destructive earthquakes occur frequently at the site of island arcs. Unlike the shallow earthquakes that are recorded in other areas of the world, these are deep-focus seismic events emanating from as much as 370 miles (600 km) below the base of an arc. The quakes tend to have foci of progressively greater depth toward the arc’s concave side.

The majority of island arcs occur along the western margin of the Pacific Basin. The few exceptions are the East Indian and the West Indian arcs and the Scotia Arc in the South Atlantic. According to prevailing theory, island arcs are formed where two lithospheric plates (enormous rigid slabs that constitute segments of the Earth’s surface) converge. Upon colliding, one of the plates—that bearing heavy, oceanic crust—buckles downward and is forced into the partially molten lower mantle beneath the second plate with lighter, continental crust. An island arc is built up from the surface of the overriding plate by the extrusion of basalts and andesites. The basalts are thought to be derived from the semimolten mantle, whereas the andesites are probably generated by the partial melting of the descending plate and the sediments that have accumulated on its surface.