Galapagos Islands, EC
The archipelago is located on the Nazca plate
The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Eastern Pacific, located around the equator, 485 nautical miles west of the mainland of South America. Ecuador formally occupied and claimed the islands on 12 February 1832. The United States built the islands' first airport as a base to protect the western approaches of the Panama Canal in the 1930s. The archipelago is located on the Nazca plate, which is moving east/southeast. This tectonic plate dives under the South American plate at a rate of about 2.5 inches per year.
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Sources
- Wikidata · CC0
- Wikipedia (en) · CC BY-SA 4.0