Plate Tectonics: A Unifying Theory
What is Plate Tectonics?
- 7 large tectonic plates and many smaller ones that break up
the lithosphere
- Plates are brittle and float on asthenosphere and glide
past each other 2-18cm per year
- This gliding causes different types of boundaries to
occur
- Three types of plate boundaries are recognized
- Divergent
- Convergent
- Transform
- Boundaries are zones of earthquakes, volcanoes,
mountain and building
- Plate Tectonics is the unifying theory of geology
- Considerable geologic, paleontology, and climatologic
evidence is used to support the theory
-Interior processes are involved in plate movement
Early Ideas about Continental Drift
- Alfred Wegener: German meteorologist
- Developed the idea of continental drift
- Proposed supercontinent named Pangaea, meaning all
land
- He portrayed the breakup of Pangaea and the movement of
continents to their present position
- Laurasia: northern hemisphere
- Gondwanaland: southern hemisphere
Evidence for Continental Drift
Continental Fit
- In 1965 Sir Edward Bullard demonstrated that a better fit
between the continents could be made if the continental
shelf/slope boundary was used: see above diagram
- Similarity of Rock Sequences and Mountain Ranges
Marine, nonmarine, and glacial rock sequences are nearly
identical for Gondwana continents
Trends of several major mountain ranges on separate
continents match when the continents are repositioned
Glacial Evidence
- Striations and glacial deposits of the same age in the five
southern continents suggest this reconstruction of
Gondwana.
- This reconstruction is consistent with fossil and
climatologic evidence from Laurasia
Fossil Evidence
- Glossopteris: if continents were separated, this plant should
not of been widespread 300 million years ago
- Cynognathus: land reptile
- Mesosaurus: freshwater reptile that could not of swam
across that Atlantic Ocean
- Lystrosaurus: land reptile
Paleomagnetism
- Remnant magnetism in ancient rocks recording the
direction of Earths magnetic poles at the time of the rocks
formation
- Curie point: temperature below which rocks can retain
magnetism
- documents continental movement over time
- Magnetic reversals: magnetic field reverses direction
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Relationship between Magnetic Reversals and Seafloor Spreading
- Newly formed seafloor basalts record Earths magnetic
field at the time of crystallization
- Patterns of magnetic reversal correlate(width and age) on
either side of ridges
- Ocean basins are relatively young features (less than 180
million years old)
Deep-Sea Drilling and the Confirmation of Seafloor Spreading
- Oceanic crust is youngest at the ridges and becomes
progressively older with increasing distance from them
- Seafloor sediments are absent at the ridges and thicken with
distance from them
Plate Tectonic Theory
- Plates of rigid lithosphere (oceanic and continental) move
from the energy of heat transfer below; independent
segments of the earths crust
- 100km-250km
- 7 major plates
- their interactions define the type of boundaries that are
created between plates
- control many surface processes
- helped define organic evolution
Plate boundaries
- Place where plates interact
- 3 types
- Divergent
- occurs where plates are separating
- may occur under oceanic or continental crust
- oceanic: ex Mid-Atlantic Ridge
- continental: ex East Africa Rift
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- Rift Valleys: elongated depression that forms at
a divergent boundary
- Convergent
- where two plates collide and the leading edge of
one plate is subducted underneath another
- Oceanic - Oceanic
- subducting plate bends downward forming
an oceanic trench
- the edge of the nonsubducting (overlaying)
plate you get a volcanic island arc
- island arcs run parallel to trench.
why?
- back-arc basin fills with volcanoclastic
sediment
- Oceanic - Continental
- denser oceanic plate is subducted under
continental plate
- andesitic volcanic mountain ranges often
form on the continental plate
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- Continental Continental
- neither plate is subducted
- mountain ranges form
- all rock types are found; including
ophiolites (piece of oceanic crust)
- Himalayas
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- Transform
- plates slide laterally past each other
- transform faults: form because segments of the
plates move at different rates
- most commonly found perpendicular to
oceanic ridges
- San Andras fault: Pacific plate/North
American plate
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Driving Mechanism of Plate Tectonics
- Convection Cells: circular movement of the asthenosphere
and possible the entire mantle
- the lithosphere (plates) ride on top of cells
- when 2 cells meet the move in the same direction
within the asthenosphere/mantle. as a result, the
lithosphereic plates either collide or move apart
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