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Earth and Space Sciences · Glossary

What is Volcanic arc, arc–trench gap?

Also known as: volcanic arc · arc--trench gap

Definition 14.7 University Earth and Space Sciences — Year 1 · Chapter 14 — Active Margins

A volcanic arc is a belt of volcanoes on the overriding plate of a subduction zone, parallel to the trench and convex towards the sinking plate, fed by magma from the mantle wedge above the slab. The arc–trench gap is the horizontal distance between the trench and the volcanic front, the line of the volcanoes nearest to the trench.

Sarychev Peak, a volcano of the Kuril arc on Matua Island, in an early stage of eruption on 12 June 2009, seen from the International Space Station through a hole in the clouds. Grey ash, probably a pyroclastic flow, runs down from the summit, and a smooth cap of cloud, a pileus, sits on the rising column; ash from the eruption was detected more than 2400\, km away. Photograph: NASA, public domain (Wikimedia Commons).
Sarychev Peak, a volcano of the Kuril arc on Matua Island, in an early stage of eruption on 12 June 2009, seen from the International Space Station through a hole in the clouds. Grey ash, probably a pyroclastic flow, runs down from the summit, and a smooth cap of cloud, a pileus, sits on the rising column; ash from the eruption was detected more than 2400 km2400\,\mathrm{km} away. Photograph: NASA, public domain (Wikimedia Commons).
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