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Earth and Space Sciences · Glossary

What is Slab pull; ridge push?

Also known as: slab pull · ridge push

Definition 15.7 High School Earth and Space Sciences · Chapter 15 — Subduction Zones

Slab pull is the force that a sinking slab, denser than the mantle around it, exerts on the rest of its plate, pulling it toward the trench. Ridge push is the force that pushes a plate away from a ridge, where the young, hot lithosphere stands high on its raised ridge and slides down its slope.

The mean speed of thirteen large plates (root mean square over the plate, in a frame in which the lithosphere as a whole does not turn). Orange: plates from which a sinking slab hangs along a long stretch of edge; blue: plates without one. India is left out: its northern edge is a collision. Data: NNR-MORVEL56 (Argus, Gordon and DeMets, 2011).
The mean speed of thirteen large plates (root mean square over the plate, in a frame in which the lithosphere as a whole does not turn). Orange: plates from which a sinking slab hangs along a long stretch of edge; blue: plates without one. India is left out: its northern edge is a collision. Data: NNR-MORVEL56 (Argus, Gordon and DeMets, 2011).
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