TECTONIC PLATES
Earth's outer shell, the lithosphere, long thought to be a continuous, unbroken, crust is actually a
fluid mosaic of many irregular rigid segments, or plates. Comprised primarily of cool, solid rock
4 to 40 miles thick,* these enormous blocks of Earth’s crust vary in size and shape, and have
definite borders that cut through continents and oceans alike. Oceanic crust is much thinner and
more dense than continental, or terrestrial crust.
There are nine large plates and a number of smaller plates. While most plates are comprised
of both continental and oceanic crust the giant Pacific Plate is almost entirely oceanic, and the
tiny Turkish-Aegean Plate is entirely land. Of the nine major plates, six are named for the
continents embedded in them: the North American, South American, Eurasian, African, Indo-
Australian, and Antarctic. The other three are oceanic plates: the Pacific, Nazca, and Cocos.
The relative small size of the numerous other plates neither diminishes their significance, nor
their impact on the surface activity of the planet. The jostling of the tiny Juan de Fuca Plate, for
example, sandwiched between the Pacific and North American Plate near the state of
Washington, is largely responsible for the frequent tremors and periodic volcanic eruptions in
that region of the country.
HOW PLATES MOVE
Powered by forces originating in Earth’s radioactive, solid iron inner core, these tectonic plates
move ponderously about at varying speeds and in different directions atop a layer of much
hotter, softer, more malleable rock called the athenosphere. Because of the high temperatures
and immense pressures found here, the uppermost part of the athenosphere is deformed and
flows almost plastically just beneath the Earth’s surface. This characteristic of the athenosphere
to flow allows the plates to inch along on their endless journeys around the surface of the earth,
moving no faster than human fingernails grow.
One idea that might explain the ability of the athenosphere to flow is the idea of convection
currents. When mantle rocks near the radioactive core are heated, they become less dense than
the cooler, upper mantle rocks. These warmer rocks rise while the cooler rocks sink, creating
slow, vertical currents within the mantle (these convection currents move mantle rocks only a
few centimeters a year). This movement of warmer and cooler mantle rocks, in turn, creates
pockets of circulation within the mantle called convection cells. The circulation of these
convection cells could very well be the driving force behind the movement of tectonic plates
over the athenosphere.
PANGAEA : ALL LANDS
All of the evidence suggests that 225 million years ago all of the land masses of earth were
locked together as a great supercontinent called Pangaea, a Greek word meaning ‘all lands’.
Panthalessa, Greek for ‘all seas’, was the name given to the resulting world ocean.
Eventually, tectonic forces caused the break-up of Pangaea, leading to the current, albeit
temporary, arrangement of oceans, continents, and other land masses.
Scientists believe that the Earth’s crust has been undergoing these transformations for most
of it’s 4.6 billion year history. Two hundred million years from now a new Pangaea will be
formed when all lands again converge. Then, inevitably, another break-up will ensue as our
restless planet continues to reform and reshape itself.
MID-OCEAN RIDGES
Did you know that the Earth’s longest mountain range is underwater? The Mid-Ocean Ridge
system, shown above snaking its way between the continents, is more than 56,000 kilometers
(35,000 mi) long. This series of mountains and valleys marks where the Earth’s crustal plates
are moving apart.
Mid-Ocean Ridges, two plates are pulling apart from each other as hot magma (liquid rock)
emerges from the mantle and oozes forth as lava to fill the crack continuously created by plate
separation. The lava cools and attaches itself to the trailing edge of each plate, forming new
ocean floor crust in a process commonly known as sea-floor spreading.
All plates have a so-called ‘leading edge’ and ‘trailing edge’. The leading edge is simply the
front of the plate, that edge which ‘leads’ the plate in the direction that it is moving. The trailing
edge is the back end of the plate. At Mid-Ocean Ridges new crust is added to the trailing edge of
each of the two separating, or diverging, plates. Hence, the further sea-floor crust is from the
mid-ocean ridge, the older it is.
SUBDUCTION ZONES
When two oceanic plates collide, the younger of the two plates, because it is less dense,* will
ride over the edge of the older plate. *[Oceanic plates grow more dense as they cool and move
further away from the Mid-Ocean Ridge]. (Image: Keith-Wiess Geological Laboratories; Rice
University)
The older, heavier plate bends and plunges steeply through the athenosphere, and descending
into the earth, it forms a trench that can be as much as 70 miles wide, more than a thousand
miles long, and several miles deep. The Marianas Trench, where the enormous Pacific Plate is
descending under the leading edge of the Eurasian Plate, is the deepest sea floor in the world. It
curves northward from near the island of Guam and its bottom lies close to 36,000 feet below
the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
TRENCH
If the descending oceanic plate is carrying a continent, the less dense continental material
cannot sink, so it dives into the trench behind the leading oceanic crust until it gets stuck. This
crumples its leading edge into folded mountains and causes some of the oceanic crust of the
overlying plate to be deposited on top of the continent. Pressure steadily builds up until the
trench “flips,” and the previously overriding oceanic plate dives under the continental crust.
This could explain why most ocean trenches are found along the edges of continents.
If a trench has flipped because of the arrival of a continent, and the newly subducted plate also
carries a continent, a collision of land masses is unavoidable. When this happens, subduction
terminates along the collision zone, the trench disappears, and the continents collide, resulting
in the birth of a new mountain range.
Sometimes an entire plate can disappear if the plates’ leading edge is being consumed in a
subduction trench faster than new crust is being added at the ridge on its trailing edge. When
this happens, the ridge slowly moves toward the trench and the whole plate is eventually drawn
down into the mantle, causing a global rearrangement of other plates and their borders.
Island Arcs
The journey of a plate sinking into a trench is a long and complex affair, and the effects of this
journey are apparent on the face of the earth. Firstly, as the cold, stiff plate begins its arduous
descent, a continuous series of earthquakes is created. The plate then starts to heat up and at a
depth of about 75 miles, certain magmas are melted and rise toward the surface. Eventually
these magmas make their way up into the leading edge of the overriding plate, where they add
material to the crust and build volcanoes above it. If the upper plate is oceanic, the volcanoes
pile up until they poke through the surface of the ocean and form an elegant arc. [Scientists
believe that this arc formation has something to do with the curvature of the earth].
Examples of island arcs created in this way are the Aleutians, the Kuriles, Japan, the Ryukyus,
and the Philippines, found clustered around the northern and western borders of the Pacific
Plate like a necklace. There are other island arcs to the south (Indonesia and the Solomon’s),
and although scientists are still puzzled by the exact origin of these southern island arcs, plate
subduction is the suspected architect.
THE RING OF FIRE
In the not too distant past, cartographers charted the deep ocean trenches, seismologists plotted
earthquakes beneath the trenches, and volcanologists studied the overlying volcanoes. But
these researchers worked independently of each other, and were unaware that the phenomena
they studied were all part of a singular process. Today, the ideas of sea-floor spreading and
subduction explain clearly why so many of the world’s volcanoes are situated on the Pacific
island arcs, the Ring of Fire, where earth’s tectonic plates are being subducted beneath deep
ocean trenches.
After about 10 million years, the final stage of subduction begins. At depths of as much as 450
miles, the plate becomes so hot that it softens and stops generating earthquakes. But the
descent and melting continue until, at some unknown depth, the plate blends with the
surrounding mantle material. Eventually this material will emerge along Mid-Ocean Ridges as
new sea-floor crust or escape as volcanic lava as the process of subduction comes full circle
and our tectonic planet continues to evolve.
MANTLE PLUMES
Current research suggests that mantle plumes originate some 1,800 miles beneath the earth’s
surface, where the liquid-metal outer core meets the lowermost part of the rocky mantle.
Seismic experiments indicate that the core is not smoothly spherical but has many irregularities,
perhaps analogous to the mountain ranges on the earth’s surface. It could be that these core
irregularities direct heat flows to produce rising plumes of molten rock capable of penetrating
the thick mantle and even reaching the earth’s surface.
There is evidence to suggest that mantle plumes have been responsible for, or have played a
major role in, the breaking-up of supercontinents such as Pangea and Gondwanaland. Some
scientists have also postulated that a major mantle plume event could have been the cause of the
mass extinction’s that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago and
included the demise of the dinosaurs.
Divergent Boundaries: At divergent boundaries new crust is created as wo 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 [Link] to 'Birth of an Ocean'
Convergent Boundaries: Here crust is destroyed and recycled back into the interior of the Earth
as one plate dives under another. These are known as Subduction Zones - mountains and
volcanoes are often found where plates converge. There are 3 types of convergent boundaries:
Oceanic-Continental Convergence; Oceanic-Oceanic Convergence; and Continental-Continental
Convergence.
Oceanic-Continental Convergence
When an oceanic plate pushes into and subducts under a continental plate, the overriding
continental plate is lifted up and a mountain range is created. Even though the oceanic
plate as a whole sinks smoothly and continuously into the subduction trench, the deepest
part of the subducting plate breaks into smaller pieces. These smaller pieces become
locked in place for long periods of time before moving suddenly and generating large
earthquakes. Such earthquakes are often accompanied by uplift of the land by as much as
a few meters.
Oceanic-Oceanic Convergence
When two oceanic plates converge one is usually subducted under the other and in the
process a deep oceanic trench is formed. The Marianas Trench, for example, is a deep
trench created as the result of the Phillipine Plate subducting under the Pacific Plate.
Oceanic-oceanic plate convergence also results in the formation of undersea volcanoes.
Over millions of years, however, the erupted lava and volcanic debris pile up on the
ocean floor until a submarine volcano rises above sea level to form an island volcano.
Such volcanoes are typically strung out in chains called island arcs.
Continental-Continental Convergence
When two continents meet head-on, neither is subducted because the continental rocks
are relatively light and, like two colliding icebergs, resist downward motion. Instead, the
crust tends to buckle and be pushed upward or sideways. The collision of India into Asia
50 million years ago caused the Eurasian Plate to crumple up and override the Indian
Plate. After the collision, the slow continuous convergence of the two plates over
millions of years pushed up the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau to their present
heights. Most of this growth occurred during the past 10 million years.
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.
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. Land on the west side of the fault zone (on the Pacific Plate) is
moving in a northwesterly direction relative to the land on the east side of the fault zone
(on the North American Plate).
SEAFLOOR SPREADING
Seafloor spreading isa process that occurs at mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust is
formed through volcanic activity and then gradually moves away from the ridge. Seafloor
spreading helps explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics. When oceanic plates
diverge, tensional stress causes fractures to occur in the lithosphere. Basaltic magma rises up the
fractures and cools on the ocean floor to form new sea floor. Older rocks will be found further
away from the spreading zone while younger rocks will be found nearer to the spreading zone.
Earlier theories (e.g. by Alfred Wegener and Alexander du Toit) of continental drift were that
continents "ploughed" through the sea. The idea that the seafloor itself moves (and carries the
continents with it) as it expands from a central axis was proposed by Harry Hess from Princeton
University in the 1960 The theory is well-accepted now, and the phenomenon is known to be
caused by convection currents in the plastic, very weak upper mantle, or asthenosphere.
seafloor spreading hypothesis, theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain
zones, known collectively as the mid-ocean ridge system, and spreads out laterally away from
them. This idea played a pivotal role in the development of plate tectonics, a theory that
revolutionized geologic thought during the last quarter of the 20th century.
On the basis of new discoveries about the deep-ocean floor, Hess postulated that molten material
from the Earth’s mantle continuously wells up along the crests of the mid-ocean ridges that wind
for nearly 80,000 km (50,000 miles) through all the world’s oceans. As the magma cools, it is
pushed away from the flanks of the ridges. This spreading creates a successively younger ocean
floor, and the flow of material is thought to bring about the migration, or drifting apart, of the
continents. The continents bordering the Atlantic Ocean, for example, are believed to be moving
away from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at a rate of 1–2 cm (0.4–0.8 inch) per year, thus increasing the
breadth of the ocean basin by twice that amount. Wherever continents are bordered by deep-sea
trench systems, as in the Pacific Ocean, the ocean floor is plunged downward, underthrusting the
continents and ultimately reentering and dissolving in the Earth’s mantle from which it
originated.
A veritable legion of evidence supports the seafloor spreading hypothesis. Studies conducted
with thermal probes, for example, indicate that the heat flow through bottom sediments is
generally comparable to that through the continents except over the mid-ocean ridges, where at
some sites the heat flow measures three to four times the normal value. The anomalously high
values are considered to reflect the intrusion of molten material near the crests of the ridges.
Research has also revealed that the ridge crests are characterized by anomalously low seismic
wave velocities, which can be attributed to thermal expansion and microfracturing associated
with the upwelling magma.
Investigations of oceanic magnetic anomalies have further corroborated the seafloor spreading
hypothesis. Such studies have shown that the strength of the geomagnetic field is alternately
anomalously high and low with increasing distance away from the axis of the mid-ocean ridge
system. The anomalous features are nearly symmetrically arranged on both sides of the axis and
parallel the axis, creating bands of parallel anomalies.
Measurements of the thickness of marine sediments and absolute age determinations of such
bottom material have provided additional evidence for seafloor spreading. The oldest sediments
so far recovered by a variety of methods—including coring, dredging, and deep-sea drilling—
date only to the Jurassic Period; that is, they do not exceed 200 million years in age. Such
findings are incompatible with the doctrine of the permanency of the ocean basins that had
prevailed among earth scientists for so many years.
Formation of geosynclines
The Hypothesis of Evans - Evans, J.W. calls geosyncline as sedimentation subsidence. He
believes that the forms of geosynclines continue changing. The birth of geosynclines can take
place
● (i) in the sea close to mountainous cost,
● (ii) at the mouth of larger rivers,
● (iii) in interior sea between continental blocks,
● (iv) close to the mountain or plateau.
In order to maintain its previous shape, the geosynclines begin to subside. Later on, the sediment
due to subsidence comes into contact with hot Sima. The Sima is heavier than the upper Sial.