PME 122
Introduction to Earth System Science
Labiba Nusrat Jahan
Associate Professor
Dept. of PME, SUST
PLATE TECTONICS
PLATE TECTONICS
a) What Is A Plate?
b) Plate Boundary
c) Plate Tectonics Theory
d) Continental Drift
e) Sea Floor Spreading
f) Driving Forces of Plate Motion
g) Types of plate boundaries
h) Significance of Plate Tectonics
i) Evidences of plate movement
WHAT IS A PLATE?
• The lithosphere is broken up into large segments what are called tectonic
plates.
• Tectonic plates consist of lithospheric mantle (upper part of the upper 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).
• Major continental and oceanic plates (14) include:
Eurasian plate, Australian-Indian plate, Philippine plate, Pacific
plate, Juan de Fuca plate, Nazca plate, Cocos plate, North American plate,
Caribbean plate, South American plate, African plate, Arabian plate, the
Antarctic plate, and the Scotia plate.
• These plates consist of smaller sub-plates.
MAJOR PLATES
Types of Crust
What is a plate boundary?
• The location where two plates meet is called a plate boundary, and plate
boundaries are commonly associated with geological events such as
earthquakes and the creation of topographic features such as mountains,
volcanoes, mid-ocean ridges, 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 most widely
known.
• Tectonic plates can include continental crust or oceanic crust, and many
plates contain both. For example, the African Plate includes the continent
and parts of the floor of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
• The distinction between oceanic crust and continental crust is based on
their modes of formation.
• Oceanic crust is formed at sea-floor spreading centers, and continental
crust is formed through arc volcanism and accretion of terranes through
tectonic processes .
Key Principles
• The outer layers of the Earth are divided into lithosphere and asthenosphere.
This is based on differences in mechanical properties and in the method for the
transfer of heat. Mechanically, the lithosphere is cooler and more rigid, while
the asthenosphere is hotter and flows more easily. In terms of heat transfer, the
lithosphere loses heat by conduction whereas the asthenosphere also transfers
heat by convection.
• 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 up to a typical 10–40 mm/a (Mid-Atlantic
Ridge; about as fast as fingernails grow), to about 160 mm/a (Nazca Plate;
about as fast as hair grows).
Plate Tectonics
• Plate tectonics (from the Late Latin tectonicus) is a scientific theory which
describes the large-scale motions of Earth's lithosphere.
• The theory builds on the older concepts of continental drift, developed
during the first decades of the 20th century by Alfred Wegener, and seafloor
spreading, developed in the 1960s.
Basic theories of plate tectonics
• Plate tectonic theory arose out of the hypothesis of continental drift
proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1912. He suggested that the present
continents once formed a single land mass that drifted apart, thus
releasing the continents from the Earth's core and likening them to
"icebergs" of low-density granite floating on a sea of denser basalt.
• More than 200 million years ago, the whole landmasses are joint
together forming a great, single supercontinent – known as Pangea.
But after that, due to moving of continental crust over the oceanic
crust, the drifting between the landmasses took place, forming seven
large individual continents in itself. This is theory of continental drift.
Continental drift
Sea floor spreading theory
• A profound consequence of seafloor spreading is that new crust was, and is
now, being continually created along the oceanic ridges. This idea found great
favor with some scientists, most notably S. Warren Carey, who claimed that
the shifting of the continents can be simply explained by a large increase in
size of the Earth since its formation.
• Due to paleomagnetism affects, lithospheric plates are moving apart & a rift
between two plates begin to form. As rifting begins, magma comes out to
surface then cools & solidifies and forming new basaltic rocks that become
magnetized aligned the direction of Earth magnetic field. So, if the plates are
continuing to move apart, more younger rocks come out the surface and
forming the continuous stripping around the ocean ridges. These stripping
basaltic bonds are normally or reversely magnetized.
• Paleomagnetism : magnetic rocks are aligned N-S line towards the Earth’s
magnetic field. Rocks retain their internal orientation unless they are heated
again. This is the basic of paleomagnetism / fossil magnetism.
Sea floor spreading
Evidences of Seafloor Spreading
• At or near the crest of the ridge, the rocks are very young, and they
become progressively older away from the ridge crest
• The youngest rocks at the ridge crest always have present-day
(normal) polarity
• Stripes of rock parallel to the ridge crest alternated in magnetic
polarity (normal-reversed-normal, etc.), suggesting that the Earth's
magnetic field has reversed many times
Driving Forces of Plate Motion
Tectonic plates are able to move because the Earth's lithosphere has a
higher strength and lower density than the underlying asthenosphere. Their
movement is driven by heat dissipation from the mantle. Lateral density
variations in the mantle result in convection, which is transferred into
tectonic plate motion through some combination of drag, downward
suction at the subduction zones, and variations in topography and density
of the crust that result in differences in gravitational forces.
What Drives a Plate: Convection
Types of Plate Boundaries
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. Divergent Boundary
2. Convergent Boundary
3. Transform Boundary
Divergent Boundaries
• At divergent boundaries new crust is created as one or more plates
pull away from each other. Oceans are born and grow wider where
plates diverge or pull apart. As seen below, when a diverging boundary
occurs on land a 'rift', or separation will arise and over time that mass
of land will break apart into distinct land masses and the surrounding
water will fill the space between them.
• E.g.; Mid-Atlantic Ridge - a divergent boundary between the North
American (westward) and Eurasian Plates (eastward)
Divergent boundaries
convergent boundaries
• 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. E.g.;
Mariana Trench
• There are 3 types of convergent boundaries:
Oceanic-Continental Convergence;
Oceanic-Oceanic Convergence; and
Continental-Continental Convergence.
convergent boundaries
• Oceanic-Continental Convergence : Oceanic crust subducts and form
Mountain. E.g.; Himalaya (Eurasian plates subducted under Indian plate)
• Oceanic-Oceanic Convergence : one subduct and pushed the asthenosphere.
So, volcanic eruption under water and earthquake occur.
• Continental-Continental Convergence : one subduct the other forming
mountain.
Oceanic continental convergence
Oceanic-oceanic convergence
Continental-continental convergence
Transform-Fault Boundaries
• Transform-Fault Boundaries are where two plates are sliding horizontally past one another. These are
also known as transform boundaries or more commonly as faults.
• When two plates move sideways against each other (at a transform plate boundary), there is a
tremendous amount of friction which makes the movement jerky. The plates slip, then stick as the
friction and pressure build up to incredible levels. When the pressure is released suddenly, and the
plates suddenly jerk apart, this cause an earthquake.
• Most transform faults are found on the ocean floor. They commonly offset active spreading ridges,
producing zig-zag plate margins, and are generally defined by shallow earthquakes. A few, however,
occur on land.
• The San Andreas fault zone in California is a transform fault that connects the East Pacific Rise, a
divergent boundary to the south, with the South Gorda -- Juan de Fuca -- Explorer Ridge, another
divergent boundary to the north. The San Andreas is one of the few transform faults exposed on land.
The San Andreas fault zone, which is about 1,300 km long and in places tens of kilometers wide, slices
through two thirds of the length of California. Along it, the Pacific Plate has been grinding horizontally
past the North American Plate for 10 million years, at an average rate of about 5 cm/yr.
Transform-Fault Boundaries
Significance of Plate Tectonics
• The theory of plate tectonics (meaning "plate structure") was
developed in the 1960’s.
• This theory explains the movement of the Earth's plates (which
has since been documented scientifically) and also explains the
cause of earthquakes, volcanoes, oceanic trenches, mountain
range formation, and many other geologic phenomenon.
Evidences of plate movement
• Topography (similar ridges) around the sea floor
• Magnetism in rocks i.e. paleomagnetism
• Sea floor spreading
• Age of ocean floor (becomes older away from center)
• Presence of same fossils in different continents (Glossopteris found
in India, South Africa and Antarctica ; Skeleton of Dinosaur found
different continents)