WILSON CYCLE Definition & Meaning

Wilson cycle

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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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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Wilson cloud chamber Wilson Dam

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Wilson cycle

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