In plate tectonic theory, oceanic crust can subduct under continental crust.

If the plates collide and neither plate can subduct under the other, the crust material will just "crumple," pushing up mountains.

When the Apulian plate started moving to the northwest in the late Cretaceous, Piemont-Ligurian crust began to subduct beneath it.

The Kula Plate once again continued to subduct beneath the continental margin, supporting the Coast Range Arc.

The Kula Plate is an ancient tectonic plate that used to subduct under Alaska during the Triassic period.

In between these two ridge trench encounter points, a small triangular shaped plate continued to subduct between Brisbane and Coffs Harbour.

The left over ridge may either subduct or ride upward across the trench onto arc trench gap and arc terranes as a hot ophiolite slice.

Somewhere near the end of the Devonian, a subduction zone developed under the Mid-German/Normannian highs and Rhenohercynian crust began to subduct.

To accommodate the compression of the Somalian plate due to two extensional edges of the plate the oceanic plate might begin to subduct below the continental plate.

The islands formed as a part of the Kurile-Kamchatkan subduction system when the Pacific Plate started to subduct under the Okhotsk Plate during the Paleogene.

When the plate of which it was a part subducted under another plate, the terrane failed to subduct, detached from its transporting plate, and accreted onto the overriding plate.

After 28 million years ago, the Farallon Plate segmented to form the Juan de Fuca Plate, which continues to subduct under the Pacific Northwest of North America.

It was presumed further that once the denser "lithosphere" was set below the lighter one, it underwent conversion to eclogite, which increased its density and drove it to subduct into the "asthenosphere".

The oceanic plates are feeding themselves back into the core once they subduct beneath the continents," he said, his voice louder now to get over the nearly continual banging and shivering of the VEMA.

When the North American Plate on its slow journey westwards encountered the Pacific Plate approximately 250 million years ago during the Paleozoic, the latter began to subduct under the North American continent.

Some geologists believe some fundamental change in convection within the Earth's mantle caused the rifting event, while others believe the huge oceanic plate became mechanically unstable as it continued to subduct beneath the Pacific Northwest.

In the Middle Miocene, the East Pacific Rise was subducted beneath North America ending subduction along this part of the Pacific margin; however, the Farallon Plate continued to subduct into the mantle.

The Insular Plate continued to subduct under the new continental shelf and coastline about 130 million years ago during the mid Cretaceous period after the formation of the Intermontane Belt, supporting a new continental volcanic arc called the Omineca Arc.

These intervals correspond closely to times of super-continent break-up and dispersal-not because they form at the ridges that separate the drifting continents, but because the large ocean basin that must coexist with any super-continent must subduct along new subduction zones as rifting progresses.

As the last of the Kula Plate decayed and the Farallon Plate advanced back into this area from the south, it once again started to subduct under the continental margin of Western Canada 37 million years ago, supporting a chain of volcanoes called the Cascade Volcanic Arc.