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).

---

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

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

From Science Daily

That will be the beginning of the recycling of crust on the eastern side of the Atlantic, and might be the start of the Atlantic itself beginning to close, initiating a new phase in the Wilson cycle.

From Science Daily

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

Simply presenting the August Wilson cycle by itself, Bomar said, is not enough.

From Washington Times