What Is Plate Tectonics?

From the deepest ocean trench to the tallest mountain, plate tectonics explains the features and
movement of Earth's surface in the present and the past.

Plate tectonics is the theory that Earth's outer shell is divided into several plates that glide over the
mantle, the rocky inner layer above the core

The plates act like a hard and rigid shell compared to Earth's mantle. This strong outer layer is called the
lithosphere, which is 100 km (60 miles) thick, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. The lithosphere
includes the crust and outer part of the mantle. Below the lithosphere is the asthenosphere, which is
malleable or partially malleable, allowing the lithosphere to move around. How it moves around is an
evolving idea.

History

Developed from the 1950s through the 1970s, plate tectonics is the modern version of continental drift,
a theory first proposed by scientist Alfred Wegener in 1912. Wegener didn't have an explanation for
how continents could move around the planet, but researchers do now. Plate tectonics is the unifying
theory of geology, said Nicholas van der Elst, a seismologist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty
Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York.

"Before plate tectonics, people had to come up with explanations of the geologic features in their region
that were unique to that particular region," Van der Elst said. "Plate tectonics unified all these
descriptions and said that you should be able to describe all geologic features as though driven by the
relative motion of these tectonic plates."

How many plates are there?

There are nine major plates, according to World Atlas. These plates are named after the landforms
found on them. The nine major plates are North American, Pacific, Eurasian, African, Indo-Australian,
Australian, Indian, South American and Antarctic.

The largest plate is the Pacific Plate at 39,768,522 square miles (103,000,000 square kilometers). Most
of it is located under the ocean. It is moving northwest at a speed of around 2.75 inches (7 cm) per year.

There are also many smaller plates throughout the world.

How plate tectonics works?

The driving force behind plate tectonics is convection in the mantle. Hot material near the Earth's core
rises, and colder mantle rock sinks. "It's kind of like a pot boiling on a stove," Van der Elst said. The
convection drive plates tectonics through a combination of pushing and spreading apart at mid-ocean
ridges and pulling and sinking downward at subduction zones, researchers think. Scientists continue to
study and debate the mechanisms that move the plates.

Mid-ocean ridges are gaps between tectonic plates that mantle the Earth like seams on a baseball. Hot
magma wells up at the ridges, forming new ocean crust and shoving the plates apart. At subduction
zones, two tectonic plates meet and one slides beneath the other back into the mantle, the layer
underneath the crust. The cold, sinking plate pulls the crust behind it downward.

Many spectacular volcanoes are found along subduction zones, such as the "Ring of Fire" that surrounds
the Pacific Ocean.

Plate boundaries

Subduction zones, or convergent margins, are one of the three types of plate boundaries. The others are
divergent and transform margins.

At a divergent margin, two plates are spreading apart, as at seafloor-spreading ridges or continental rift
zones such as the East Africa Rift.
 Transform margins mark slip-sliding plates, such as California's San Andreas Fault, where the North
America and Pacific plates grind past each other with a mostly horizontal motion.

1. Which of the above boundaries can produce earthquakes?

2. Which produces the largest earthquakes?

At convergent plate boundaries, where two continental plates collide earthquakes are deep and also
very powerful. In general, the deepest and the most powerful earthquakes occur at plate collision (or
subduction) zones at convergent plate boundaries.

Which of the above boundaries can produce volcanoes?

There are three main places where volcanoes originate: Hot spots, Divergent plate boundaries (such as
rifts and mid-ocean ridges), and. Convergent plate boundaries (subduction zones)

3. At which of the above boundaries is sea floor created?

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is the longest mountain chain on Earth. These ridges are spreading centers or
divergent plate boundaries where the upwelling of magma from the mantle creates new ocean floor.
Deep-sea trenches are long, narrow basins which extend 8-11 km below sea level.

4. At which of the above boundaries is sea floor destroyed?

Seafloor spreading is when the sea floor spreads apart. This occurs at Divergent Boundaries. At which type
of boundary is seafloor destroyed? The seafloor is destroyed at a Convergent Boundary.

5. What are the three sub-types of convergent plate boundaries?

There are three types of convergent boundaries each with its own consequences.

Oceanic-Continental Convergence.

Oceanic-Oceanic Convergence.

Continental-Continental Convergence.

6. What is the most studied transform fault in the world?

The most studied transform fault in the world is the San Andreas Fault, which is located in western
California.

CONTINENTAL DRIFT THEORY

Alfred Wegener

Continental drift is the theory that the Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to
each other, thus appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed

The speculation that continents might have 'drifted' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596.
The concept was independently and more fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912

but his theory was rejected by many for lack of any motive mechanism. Arthur Holmes later proposed
mantle convection for that mechanism. The idea of continental drift has since been subsumed by the
theory of plate tectonics, which explains that the continents move by riding on plates of the Earth's
lithosphere.

Pangaea or Pangea was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras.
It assembled from earlier continental units approximately 335 million years ago, and it began to break
apart about 175 million years ago

About 200 million years ago, the supercontinent began to break up. Gondwana (what is now Africa,
South America, Antarctica, India and Australia) first split from Laurasia (Eurasia and North America).
Then about 150 million years ago, Gondwana broke up.
 Just before the days of the dinosaurs the Earth's continents were all connected into one huge landmass
called Pangaea . ... About 180 million years ago the supercontinent Pangea began to break up. Scientists
believe that Pangea broke apart for the same reason that the plates are moving today.

"And you can only do it if you have a really clear idea of why things happen in the first place." For now it
appears that in 250 million years, the Earth's continents will be merged again into one giant
landmass...just as they were 250 million years before now. From Pangea, to present, to Pangea

The Theory of Continental Drift

Continental Drift Discovery

ALFRED WEGENER
THEORY OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT

Found evidence for PANGAEA and proposed the theory of continental drift.

Continental Drift
(p95 red book, 182 in Sciencesaurus)

• Theory that continents were once part of a single landmass that broke
apart and has moved to their present locations.

• can drift apart from one another and have done so in the past

Pangaea

Pangaea is the name given to the single landmass that was present 200 million

WEGENER’S EVIDENCE

Continents “fit together” like puzzle pieces .

Fossil Evidence

• Fossils are remains of living things that lived long ago.

• similar fossils have been discovered in matching coastlines on different continents

Mountains

Some mountain ranges on different continents seem to match.

Ex: ranges in Canada match Norway and Sweden

Ex: Appalachian Mtn. match UK mtn

Climatic evidence such as glaciers in areas that is now close to the Equator

Evidence of Continental Drift

Satellites used to measure the movement of continents.

Laser Geodynamics Satellite (LAGEOS)

Seafloor spreading is a process that occurs at mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust is formed
through volcanic activity and then gradually moves away from the ridge.