Geology

GEOLOGY

Subject : GEOLOGY
(For under graduate student.)

Paper No. : Paper – 05

Dynamics of Earth

Topic No. & Title : 151

Dynamics of Earth (Part – 01)

Academic Script

Introduction
Among all planets in our Solar System Earth is the most dynamic and active. The
activity both at its surface and its interiors is manifested through the still rising
mountain chains, earthquake and volcanic belts, constantly changing shore lines of
continents and the evidences that the present day continents situated across the
oceans were once together. Since the time when the seafarers, mostly from Europe,
circumnavigated the globe and were able to draw up a rough but fairly accurate map
of the world’s oceans and continents it was evident to even the casual observer that
the bulge on the eastern coastline of South America and the notch on the west coast
of Africa fitted perfectly like the pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. Further investigation into
the rock sequences and their structural attributes on opposite shorelines by later
scientific workers revealed that there was indeed a structural, lithological and
biological continuity among the continents situated across the Atlantic and Antarctic
oceans. These observations led the leading scientists from both the Old world and
the New to start thinking about the large scale tectonic processes active on our
planet.

Orogeny and Epeirogeny

Since the early years of scientific investigation the inquisitive minds of the early
philosophers and naturalists wondered about the processes responsible for the
building up of the great mountain chains on the continents of Europe and North
America. The initial ideas were that huge deposits of coal in the underground caught
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fire and caused the melting of rocks. This melt pushed up the overburden forming
mountain chains. However this theory soon proved to be an oversimplification and
was discarded being replaced by the concept of Orogeny or mountain building by
horizontal earth movements. It was suggested that the earth was shrinking as it was
cooling gradually from a ball of hot gas and that resulted in development of
contractional forces acting along its surface. The concept of a linear depression(or
Geosyncline) developing initially which was gradually filled up by sediments was
forwarded by the leading scientists of the 19th century and was the most accepted
theory of tectonic evolution of the time. According to these scientists the
Geosyncline was gradually loaded down by a thick pile of sediments and finally
horizontal forces squeezed the sediments to form a fold mountain. They identified
two distinct zones within a geosyncline-the shallower part with thick sedimentary
deposits but no igneous activity called the Miogeosyncline and the deeper part
dominated by igneous rocks called the Eugeosyncline. This concept of a cycle starting
with the development of a linear depression which gradually filled up with sediments
and was finally squeezed up into a mountain chain was called the Orogenic cycle. This
theory dominated the world of tectonics for nearly a century till the 1960’s but is
now proved to be without sound scientific foundation and no longer valid. However,
some of the terminology are still in use with slight modifications. For example the
shallow areas on continental margins where thick sediments are deposited are now a
days called Miogeoclines.

Another type of earth movement that involves vertical uplifts of the earth’s
crust for formation of mountains occurs at times at specific tectonic situations inside
stable cratonic areas on continents . The development of such uplifts without any
significant deformation, metamorphism or igneous activity through a process based
inside the mantle is called Epeirogeny . The modern day tectonic concepts that
gradually evolved through the years mainly in the 20th century will be discussed in
the following modules and help in understanding the tectonic processes active on our
planet.

Continental Drift
In the 18th Century, after reliable maps of the world were prepared by collating
the information gathered by several hundreds of seafarers and scientists, it was
noted that the eastern and western coasts of the Atlantic Ocean could be fitted
together more or less smoothly as if they were once together. That led some active
minds to explore the possibility of the break-up of a large continental mass into
pieces that later drifted apart to their present positions.

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Several earth scientists, among them F.B. Taylor, A. Wegener, E. Argand,

[Link] and A.L. du Toit, came up with hypotheses and proposals in support of this
viewpoint. Of them, the most to get currency among the scientific community was
those of Wegener, a German meteorologist, who in 1912 and 1929, published articles
in support of his theory. In his publications he envisaged lighter continents ploughing
through denser oceanic crust which, no amount of day-dreaming could possibly
achieve. Thus, a majority of scientists trashed the idea. However, the observations
made on several places on the earth did reveal by the 1950’s that some of the
regions now in the tropics did show evidences of glaciations at low altitudes in the
geologic past indicating their location in much higher latitudes at that time. Similar
rock associations with characteristic fossils and mineral deposits, peculiar enough to
be almost unique, were reported from opposite shores of oceans. The most clinching
evidence was the presence of Glossopteris flora, a group of Upper Paleozoic
freshwater plants in the coal-bearing Gondwana Supergroup of rocks in far flung
continents like S America, Africa, India and Australia. These together constituted the
southern landmass called Gondwanaland, which broke up to form the present day
continents. Red Beds and coral reefs, which have specific latitudinal associations
were found in old rocks in areas far away. These observations revived the interest of
scientists in the theory of “ Drift”. Holmes went so far as to suggest the existence of
‘convection cells’ in the mantle to provide for the dynamics of moving continents.
However, the proponents of Continental Drift hypothesis failed to provide a
reasonable and scientifically tenable mechanism for the dynamics of continental
movement through the denser oceanic crust and was not accepted by the scientist
community at large. That Wegener did not belong to the coterie of British, French
and American scientists also played a significant role in his hypothesis being rejected.

Sea Floor Spreading

Though the hypothesis of Continental Drift did not find favour with scientists,
the facts kept on bugging those interested in unravelling the mysteries of our planet.
In spite of the Geosynclinal hypothesis ruling the minds of scientific workers, new
observations and discoveries were continuously being made that threw new light on
the problem. During World War II scientists on Allied submarines that were trying to
find passages across the Atlantic ocean avoiding the German navy made
measurements of undersea magnetic intensities as a routine matter. It was found out
that on the ocean floor there were symmetrically disposed stripes against the mid-
Atlantic ridge showing magnetic intensities alternately higher and lower than the
ambient intensity of the earth. It was explained by the formation of new oceanic
crust at the ridge crest and its spreading apart. It was identified that Earth’s magnetic
polarity reversed from time to time and the portions of the newly formed oceanic
crust got magnetised by the ambient magnetic field at the time of its formation. This
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was combined with the observation that though rocks older than a few billions of
years are found preserved on continents no oceanic crust older than Jurassic(
approximately 200 million years) exist. This was clear evidence that oceanic crust
must be getting destroyed at regular intervals. Dietz ( 1961) and Hess (1962 ), have
already started developing Holmes’ idea of convection cells in the mantle to explain
the formation of new crust at mid-oceanic ridges where the adjacent cells move
away and destruction of old crust at oceanic trenches where two cells come
together sending the existing crust to go back to the mantle.

Plate Tectonic Hypothesis

Based on such hypotheses and explanation of the dynamics, the theory of Plate
Tectonics slowly built up through the efforts of [Link], D.P. Mackenzie,
[Link], [Link], [Link] Pichon etc. This new concept that brought about a
paradigm change in scientific thought, was developed on the basis of existing
hypotheses but also contained several completely new ideas. The concept of’
‘lithosphere’ was mooted as the outermost layer of the earth, which was believed to
be made up , not only of the crust but the uppermost part of the mantle as well.
It varied in thickness from a few kilometers on young ocean floors to about 300 kms
over stable continental regions and was believed to be rigid, that is non-deformable
in plan. The lithosphere is split up into several pieces –some big and some small with
relative motion among the adjacent pieces-each called a ’plate’. At present about 11
plates, some large (eg. The Pacific Plate) and some quite small (the Caribbean plate
or the Juan de Fuca plate) are recognized. The concept of Plate Tectonics brought out
a paradigm change in scientific thinking and conception about the earh’s features
and processes.

While the continental drift hypothesis envisaged that the shapes of continents
changed through time during fragmentation and re-joining of continents, plate
tectonic theory clearly ruled it out because of the rigid nature of the plates. This,
however, does not hold good if we look into detailed shapes of continents through
time.

It is believed that the lithospheric plates move over a layer within the mantle
just below which have been rendered weak by partial melting and which shows a
lower seismic velocity than the average mantle at that depth because fluids on grain
surfaces slows down seismic waves. This layer was given the name ‘asthenosphere’ (
from Greek asthenos; meaning no strength). Adjacent plates may move away from
each other, towards each other or horizontally past each other. In the first two cases
the movement is perpendicular or in general at high angles to the mutual boundary
and in the third it is mostly parallel or at a slight angle to the boundary. Where two
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plates move away, new lithosphere is created, adding to the existing one. Thus these
boundaries are called divergent or constructive or accreting boundaries( eg. The mid-
oceanic ridges or the East African rift system). Where two plates come together, the
one that is heavier generally goes below or ’subducted’ below the lighter one and is
ultimately destroyed so that the total surface area remains constant. This type is
known as convergent or destructive boundaries( eg. The oceanic trenches around the
Pacific ocean). In the third type the movement is like strike-slip faults, no addition to
or destruction of the existing lithosphere takes place and hence known as
conservative boundaries( eg. The San Andreas fault of N. America).

At divergent boundaries on continents the splitting leads to the formation of an

ocean separating two landmasses while at convergent boundaries two separate
landmasses may get joined together to form a single, new continent. Volcanism
mostly occurs at plate boundaries, both divergent and convergent and earthquakes
mostly are distributed along these boundaries. Detailed discussion on these aspects
of plate tectonics will be taken up later.