Convergent Plates- Pontic Mountains

This week we took a trip to Turkey to visit the Pontic Mountains! The locals call the it Parhar Mountains! The Pontic Mountains are on the northern side of the Anatolia peninsula in northern Turkey. The height of the Pontic Mountains is 12,900 feet. These mountains make a gentle bend and reflect the outline of the southern shore of the Black Sea. These mountains formed due to the oceanic crust and the continental crust collides. The oceanic crust makes up the ocean and the continental crust makes up land. Oceanic-continental subduction occurs when an oceanic plate dives below continental plates. This boundary has a trench and mantle wedge. A convergent boundary, also known as a destructive plate boundary, is a region of active deformation where two or more tectonic plates or fragments of the lithosphere are near the end of their life cycle. When continental and oceanic plates collide, the thinner and more dense oceanic plate is overridden by the thicker and less dense continental plate. The oceanic plate is forced down into the mantle in a process known as subduction. As the oceanic plate descends, it is forced into higher temperature environments.