Understanding the structure and nature of movements within the Earth's crust has become increasingly important as we try to understand the history of the Earth and try to use this knowledge as a key to events in the future. This is especially relevant to those everincreasing communities populating the edges of the Pacific Ocean. This collection of papers deals with the tectonic modelling and evolution in some of the most seismically active regions in the world. Structural and stratigraphical analysis, together with geophysical, petrological and geochemical data give us some insight into tectonic events from the past and how they affected ancient landforms, and gives us a clearer understanding of earth movements and, therefore, allows us to predict catastrophic events such as earthquakes with greater accuracy.

Proceedings of the Oji International Seminar on Accretion Tectonics, September 1981, Tomakomai, Japan

This book, written by a group of internationally known experts, describes the evolution of the Pacific Ocean margins in terms of their interaction with oceanic plates. The work reflects changes in recent years in accepted views concerning the evolution of these margins. It is now thought that much of the crust of the margins may have grown through the gradual addition of discrete terranes of "foreign origin"--that is, of earth materials transported from other locations by tectonic processes. The margins discussed are those of western North America, Asia, Japan, Eastern China, Southeast Asia, New Zealand, and South America. Also reviewed are the general concepts of oceanic plateaus and transported terranes, and the past motion of the Pacific Ocean Plate.