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Plate tectonics

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Rebecca
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« on: May 16, 2007, 06:50:16 am »



Quake Epicenters

Plate tectonics (from Greek τέκτων, tektōn "builder" or "mason") is a theory of geology that has been developed to explain the observed evidence for large scale motions of the Earth's lithosphere. The theory encompassed and superseded the older theory of continental drift from the first half of the 20th century and the concept of seafloor spreading developed during the 1960s.

The outermost part of the Earth's interior is made up of two layers: above is the lithosphere, comprising the crust and the rigid uppermost part of the mantle. Below the lithosphere lies the asthenosphere. Although solid, the asthenosphere has relatively low viscosity and shear strength and can flow like a liquid on geological time scales. The deeper mantle below the asthenosphere is more rigid again. This is, however, due not to cooler temperatures but to high pressure.

The lithosphere is broken up into what are called tectonic plates—in the case of Earth, there are seven major and many minor plates. The lithospheric plates ride on the asthenosphere. These plates move in relation to one another at one of three types of plate boundaries: convergent or collision boundaries, divergent or spreading boundaries, and transform boundaries. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation occur along plate boundaries. The lateral movement of the plates is typically at speeds of 0.66 to 8.50 centimeters per year.

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Rebecca
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« Reply #1 on: May 16, 2007, 06:52:35 am »



The tectonic plates of the world were mapped in the second half of the 20th century.

Plate tectonic theory arose out of the hypothesis of continental drift first proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1912 and expanded in his 1915 book The Origin of Continents and Oceans that said in part that all the continents once been together in a single land mass that had drifted apart. But it was not until the mechanic of seafloor spreading (first articulated by Robert S. Dietz, but Harry Hess is usually given credit (see below)) in the early 1960s that the theory actually became accepted by the scientific community.

Following the recognition of magnetic anomalies defined by symmetric, parallel stripes of similar magnetization on the seafloor on either side of a mid-ocean ridge, plate tectonics quickly became broadly accepted. Simultaneous advances in early seismic imaging techniques in and around Wadati-Benioff zones collectively with numerous other geologic observations soon solidified plate tectonics as a theory with extraordinary explanatory and predictive power.

Study of the deep ocean floor was critical to development of the theory; the field of deep sea marine geology accelerated in the 1960s. Correspondingly, plate tectonic theory was developed during the late 1960s and has since been essentially universally accepted by scientists throughout all geoscientific disciplines. The theory has revolutionized the Earth sciences because of its unifying and explanatory power for diverse geological phenomena.

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Rebecca
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« Reply #2 on: May 16, 2007, 06:57:02 am »



Plate tectonics map from NASA


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Rebecca
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« Reply #3 on: May 16, 2007, 06:58:55 am »

Key principles

The division of the outer parts of the Earth's interior into lithosphere and asthenosphere is based on their mechanical differences and in the ways that heat is transferred. The lithosphere is cooler and more rigid, whilst the asthenosphere is hotter and mechanically weaker. Also, the lithosphere loses heat by conduction whereas asthenosphere transfers heat by convection and has a nearly adiabatic temperature gradient. This division should not be confused with the chemical subdivision of the Earth into (from innermost to outermost) core, mantle, and crust. The lithosphere contains both crust and some mantle. A given piece of mantle may be part of the lithosphere or the asthenosphere at different times, depending on its temperature, pressure and shear strength. The key principle of plate tectonics is that the lithosphere exists as separate and distinct tectonic plates, which ride on the fluid-like (visco-elastic solid) asthenosphere. Plate motions range from a few millimeters per year (about as fast as our fingernails grow) to about 15 centimeters per year (about as fast as our hair grows).

The plates are around 100 km (60 miles) thick and consist of lithospheric mantle overlain by either of two types of crustal material: oceanic crust (in older texts called sima from silicon and magnesium) and continental crust (sial from silicon and aluminium). The two types of crust differ in thickness, with continental crust considerably thicker than oceanic (50 km vs 5 km).

One plate meets another along a plate boundary, and plate boundaries are commonly associated with geological events such as earthquakes and the creation of topographic features like mountains, volcanoes and oceanic trenches. The majority of the world's active volcanoes occur along plate boundaries, with the Pacific Plate's Ring of Fire being most active and famous. These boundaries are discussed in further detail below.

Tectonic plates can include continental crust or oceanic crust, and typically, a single plate carries both. For example, the African Plate includes the continent and parts of the floor of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The distinction between continental crust and oceanic crust is based on the density of constituent materials; oceanic crust is denser than continental crust owing to their different proportions of various elements, particularly, silicon. Oceanic crust is denser because it has less silicon and more heavier elements ("mafic") than continental crust ("felsic"). As a result, oceanic crust generally lies below sea level (for example most of the Pacific Plate), while the continental crust projects above sea level (see isostasy for explanation of this principle).

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Rebecca
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« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2007, 07:01:31 am »



Three types of plate boundary.

Types of plate boundaries
 
 
Three types of plate boundary.

Three types of plate boundaries exist, characterized by the way the plates move relative to each other. They are associated with different types of surface phenomena. The different types of plate boundaries are:
1.   Transform boundaries occur where plates slide or, perhaps more accurately, grind past each other along transform faults. The relative motion of the two plates is either sinistral (left side toward the observer) or dextral (right side toward the observer).
2.   Divergent boundaries occur where two plates slide apart from each other (examples of which can be seen at mid-ocean ridges and active zones of rifting (such as with the East Africa rift)).
3.   Convergent boundaries (or active margins) occur where two plates slide towards each other commonly forming either a subduction zone (if one plate moves underneath the other) or a continental collision (if the two plates contain continental crust). Deep marine trenches are typically associated with subduction zones. Because of friction and heating of the subducting slab, volcanism is almost always closely linked. Examples of this are the Andes mountain range in South America and the Japanese island arc.
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Rebecca
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« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2007, 07:03:40 am »



The Southern Alps rise dramatically beside the Alpine Fault on New Zealand's West Coast. About 500 kilometres (300 mi) long; northwest at top.

Transform boundary

In plate tectonics, a transform boundary (also known as transform fault boundary, transform plate boundary, transform plate margin, strike-slip boundary, sliding boundary, or conservative plate boundary) is said to occur when tectonic plates slide and grind against each other along a transform fault. The relative motion of such plates is horizontal in either sinistral or dextral direction.

Most transform boundaries are found on the ocean floor, where they often offset active spreading ridges to form a zigzag plate boundary. However, the most famous transform boundaries are found on land. Many transform boundaries are locked in tension before suddenly releasing, and causing earthquakes.


Because of friction, the plates cannot simply glide past each other. Rather, stress builds up in both plates and when it reaches a level that exceeds the strain threshold of rocks on either side of the fault the accumulated potential energy is released as strain. Strain is both accumulative and/or instantaneous depending on the rheology of the rock; the ductile lower crust and mantle accumulates deformation gradually via shearing whereas the brittle upper crust reacts by fracture, or instantaneous stress release to cause motion along the fault. The ductile surface of the fault can also release instantaneously when the strain rate is too great. The energy released by instantaneous strain release is the cause of earthquakes, a common phenomenon along transform boundaries.

A good example of this type of plate boundary is the San Andreas Fault which is found in the western coast of North America and is one part of a highly complex system of faults in this area. At this location, the Pacific and North American plates move relative to each other such that the Pacific plate is moving northwest with respect to North America. Other examples of transform faults include the Alpine Fault in New Zealand and the North Anatolian Fault in Turkey. Transform faults are also found offsetting the crests of mid-ocean ridges (for example, the Mendocino Fracture Zone offshore northern California).


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Rebecca
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« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2007, 07:05:35 am »



Bridge across the Álfagjá rift valley near Grindavik on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwest Iceland, the boundary of the Eurasian and North American continental tectonic plates.

Divergent (constructive) boundaries

At divergent boundaries, two plates move apart from each other and the space that this creates is filled with new crustal material sourced from molten magma that forms below. The origin of new divergent boundaries at triple junctions is sometimes thought to be associated with the phenomenon known as hotspots. Here, exceedingly large convective cells bring very large quantities of hot asthenospheric material near the surface and the kinetic energy is thought to be sufficient to break apart the lithosphere. The hot spot which may have initiated the Mid-Atlantic Ridge system currently underlies Iceland which is widening at a rate of a few centimeters per century.

Divergent boundaries are typified in the oceanic lithosphere by the rifts of the oceanic ridge system, including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the East Pacific Rise, and in the continental lithosphere by rift valleys such as the famous East African Great Rift Valley. Divergent boundaries can create massive fault zones in the oceanic ridge system. Spreading is generally not uniform, so where spreading rates of adjacent ridge blocks are different, massive transform faults occur. These are the fracture zones, many bearing names, that are a major source of submarine earthquakes. A sea floor map will show a rather strange pattern of blocky structures that are separated by linear features perpendicular to the ridge axis. If one views the sea floor between the fracture zones as conveyor belts carrying the ridge on each side of the rift away from the spreading center the action becomes clear. Crest depths of the old ridges, parallel to the current spreading center, will be older and deeper (from thermal contraction and subsidence).

It is at mid-ocean ridges that one of the key pieces of evidence forcing acceptance of the sea-floor spreading hypothesis was found. Airborne geomagnetic surveys showed a strange pattern of symmetrical magnetic reversals on opposite sides of ridge centers. The pattern was far too regular to be coincidental as the widths of the opposing bands were too closely matched. Scientists had been studying polar reversals and the link was made. The magnetic banding directly corresponds with the Earth's polar reversals. This was confirmed by measuring the ages of the rocks within each band. The banding furnishes a map in time and space of both spreading rate and polar reversals.
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Rebecca
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« Reply #7 on: May 16, 2007, 07:07:07 am »

Convergent (destructive) boundaries

The nature of a convergent boundary depends on the type of lithosphere in the plates that are colliding. Where a dense oceanic plate collides with a less-dense continental plate, the oceanic plate is typically thrust underneath because of the greater buoyancy of the continental lithosphere, forming a subduction zone. At the surface, the topographic expression is commonly an oceanic trench on the ocean side and a mountain range on the continental side. An example of a continental-oceanic subduction zone is the area along the western coast of South America where the oceanic Nazca Plate is being subducted beneath the continental South American Plate.

While the processes directly associated with the production of melts directly above downgoing plates producing surface volcanism is the subject of some debate in the geologic community, the general consensus from ongoing research suggests that the release of volatiles is the primary contributor. As the subducting plate descends, its temperature rises driving off volatiles (most importantly water) encased in the porous oceanic crust. As this water rises into the mantle of the overriding plate, it lowers the melting temperature of surrounding mantle, producing melts (magma) with large amounts of dissolved gases. These melts rise to the surface and are the source of some of the most explosive volcanism on Earth because of their high volumes of extremely pressurized gases (consider Mount St. Helens). The melts rise to the surface and cool forming long chains of volcanoes inland from the continental shelf and parallel to it. The continental spine of western South America is dense with this type of volcanic mountain building from the subduction of the Nazca plate. In North America the Cascade mountain range, extending north from California's Sierra Nevada, is also of this type. Such volcanoes are characterized by alternating periods of quiet and episodic eruptions that start with explosive gas expulsion with fine particles of glassy volcanic ash and spongy cinders, followed by a rebuilding phase with hot magma. The entire Pacific Ocean boundary is surrounded by long stretches of volcanoes and is known collectively as The Ring of Fire.

Where two continental plates collide the plates either buckle and compress or one plate delves under or (in some cases) overrides the other. Either action will create extensive mountain ranges. The most dramatic effect seen is where the northern margin of the Indian Plate is being thrust under a portion of the Eurasian plate, lifting it and creating the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau beyond. It has also caused parts of the Asian continent to deform westward and eastward on either side of the collision.

When two plates with oceanic crust converge they typically create an island arc as one plate is subducted below the other. The arc is formed from volcanoes which erupt through the overriding plate as the descending plate melts below it. The arc shape occurs because of the spherical surface of the earth (nick the peel of an orange with a knife and note the arc formed by the straight-edge of the knife). A deep undersea trench is located in front of such arcs where the descending slab dips downward. Good examples of this type of plate convergence would be Japan and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.

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Rebecca
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« Reply #8 on: May 16, 2007, 07:10:19 am »



Oceanic / Continental



Continental / Continental



Oceanic / Oceanic


Plates may collide at an oblique angle rather than head-on (e.g. one plate moving north, the other moving south-east), and this may cause strike-slip faulting along the collision zone, in addition to subduction.

Not all plate boundaries are easily defined. Some are broad belts whose movements are unclear to scientists. One example would be the Mediterranean-Alpine boundary, which involves two major plates and several micro plates. The boundaries of the plates do not necessarily coincide with those of the continents. For instance, the North American Plate covers not only North America, but also far eastern Siberia and northern Japan.
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Rebecca
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« Reply #9 on: May 16, 2007, 07:12:29 am »

Driving forces of plate motion

Plates are able to move because of the relative density of oceanic lithosphere and the relative weakness of the asthenosphere. Dissipation of heat from the mantle is acknowledged to be the original source of energy driving plate tectonics, but it is no longer thought that the plates ride passively on asthenospheric convection currents. Instead, it is accepted that the excess density of the oceanic lithosphere sinking in subduction zones drives plate motions. When it forms at mid-ocean ridges, the oceanic lithosphere is initially less dense than the underlying asthenosphere, but it becomes more dense with age, as it conductively cools and thickens. The greater density of old lithosphere relative to the underlying asthenosphere allows it to sink into the deep mantle at subduction zones, providing most of the driving force for plate motions. The weakness of the asthenosphere allows the tectonic plates to move easily towards a subduction zone.

Two and three-dimensional imaging of the Earth's interior (seismic tomography) shows that there is a laterally heterogeneous density distribution throughout the mantle. Such density variations can be material (from rock chemistry), mineral (from variations in mineral structures), or thermal (through thermal expansion and contraction from heat energy). The manifestation of this lateral density heterogeneity is mantle convection from buoyancy forces.[1] How mantle convection relates directly and indirectly to the motion of the plates is a matter of ongoing study and discussion in geodynamics. Somehow, this energy must be transferred to the lithosphere in order for tectonic plates to move. There are essentially two types of forces that are thought to influence plate motion: friction and gravity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_Tectonics
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luigiusai
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« Reply #10 on: July 28, 2021, 02:08:21 pm »

Atlantis has been found
Atlantis is the Sardo Corso Graben Horst underwater continental block submerged by the Meltwater Pulses and destroyed by a subduction zone, Capital is Sulcis
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