A subduction zone is also generated when two oceanic plates collide — the older plate is forced under the younger one — and it leads to the formation of chains of volcanic islands known as island arcs. Examples include the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific Ocean and the Aleutian Islands, off the coast of Alaska.
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Convergent Boundaries — Colliding Plates. At convergent boundaries, tectonic plates collide with each other. The events that occur at these boundaries are linked to the types of plates — oceanic or continental — that are interacting. At some convergent boundaries, an oceanic plate collides with a continental plate.
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Plate tectonics (from the Late Latin tectonicus, from the Greek: τεκτονικός pertaining to building) is a scientific theory describing the large-scale motion of 7 large plates and the movements of a larger number of smaller plates of the Earth's lithosphere, over the last 100's of millions of years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_plate
Best Answer: It all has to do with the composition of the plates. Continental plates are made of mostly granite, while Oceanic plates are made of mostly basalt. Basalt is denser than granite, so oceanic plates are denser than continental plates. Hope it helps!! Because the Earth acts as a giant iron smelter. The continental crust is the glassy slag floating on top of the less differentiated oceanic crust, which in its turn floats on the even less differentiated mantle.
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Where the plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of boundary: convergent, divergent, or transform. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation occur along these plate boundaries. The relative movement of the plates typically ranges from zero to 100 mm annually.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_plate
Where the two plates meet, the denser oceanic lithosphere of the Nazca Plate is forced down and under the more buoyant continental lithosphere of the South American Plate, descending at an angle into the mantle in a process called subduction.
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Plate-Tectonics/Chap3-Plate-Margins/Convergent/Oceanic-continental
Continental plates are made of mostly granite, while Oceanic plates are made of mostly basalt. Basalt is denser than granite, so oceanic plates are denser than continental plates. For more info, read this: http://scign.jpl.nasa.gov/learn/plate3.htm.
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As a result of this density stratification, oceanic crust generally lies below sea level (for example most of the Pacific Plate), while continental crust buoyantly projects above sea level (see the page isostasy for explanation of this principle).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_plate
Along convergent boundaries, subduction carries plates into the mantle; the material lost is roughly balanced by the formation of new (oceanic) crust along divergent margins by seafloor spreading. In this way, the total surface of the lithosphere remains the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_plate
Plate movement is thought to be driven by a combination of the motion of the seafloor away from the spreading ridge (due to variations in topography and density of the crust, which result in differences in gravitational forces) and drag, with downward suction, at the subduction zones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_plate
which is denser oceanic or continental plates
Oceanic plates are denser than continental plates.