The uplifted Costa Rican forearc landward of the Middle America Trench and the Mariana forearc drilled on IPOD leg 60 both lack the thick clastic sequences, complex deformation, and abundant evidence of accretion which characterize more widely known forearcs that border continents. Both regions contain significant in situ accumulations of pelagic and hemipelagic sediments in place of thick trench and trench slope basin sequences composed of terrigenous turbidites. The Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica contains no significant melange terranes. Deformation of the mafic igneous basement and its thin cover of pelagic, hemipelagic, and first‐cycle volcanogenic material is mild overall, with discrete zones of intense deformation disrupting otherwise well‐preserved stratigraphic sections. Intraoceanic subduction zones lacking longitudinal trench feed are sites of little or no accretion of sediments, and recently suggested experimental and theoretical models of subduction zone processes involving flow melanges are inappropriate for intraoceanic forearcs. Intraoceanic forearcs generally lack high‐grade exotic components such as blueschist and eclogite tectonically incorporated as blocks in lower‐grade matrix, although uplift and erosion of the forearc basement may provide detritus of amphibolite and ultramafic rock to the trench and trenc
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