Obduction

Quick meaning: Obduction is a noun meaning (largely obsolete) An autopsy.

Meaning

(largely obsolete) An autopsy.

More Meanings

1. (geology) The overthrusting of continental crust by oceanic crust or rocks from the mantle, such that the oceanic crust is thrust onto the continental crust, as occurs at a convergent plate boundary when the continental crust is caught in a subduction zone.
2. (obsolete) The act of drawing or laying over, as a covering.

Example Sentences

Ongoing accretion at a subduction zone, and the obduction of intact ophiolite slabs, are not considered to be collision.

These frictional forces slowed the obduction of the ophiolite onto the continental margin and obduction ceased after the nappe was transported 100–200 km.

Around Arabia - as well as in the Himalayas - these obductions completely obliterated the Neotethyan ocean, which in this time frame is represented only by a few exotic blocks and by Permo-Triassic pelagic sediments found at the sole of the Cretaceous ophiolites.

Word Forms

• obductions

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include ophiolite, overlay, overplate, overlier, absorption, onlay.

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