Wilson cycle

American  

noun

1. Geology. a model that describes the opening and closing of ocean basins along tectonic plates.

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Wilson cycle Scientific  

1. The cyclical opening and closing of ocean basins caused by movement of the Earth's plates. The Wilson cycle begins with a rising plume of magma and the thinning of the overlying crust. As the crust continues to thin due to extensional tectonic forces, an ocean basin forms and sediments accumulate along its margins. Subsequently subduction is initiated on one of the ocean basin's margins and the ocean basin closes up. When the crust begins to thin again, another cycle begins. The Wilson cycle is named after the Canadian geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson (1908–1993).

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Example Sentences

Their configuration is ever-shifting, as supercontinents are assembled and broken up, and oceans form, grow, and then start to close in what is known as the Wilson cycle.

From Science Daily • Feb. 15, 2024

In the Wilson cycle, when a supercontinent like Pangea is broken up, an interior ocean is formed.

From Science Daily • Feb. 15, 2024

Washington’s facility with oratory will come as no surprise to anyone who saw him in Kenneth Branagh’s “Much Ado About Nothing” — not to mention the August Wilson cycle.

From Washington Post • Dec. 21, 2021

Figure 10.27 A scenario for the Wilson cycle.

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2015