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Plate Tectonics - The Action Is at The Edges!

The document discusses the three types of plate boundaries: divergent boundaries where plates move apart and new crust is formed, convergent boundaries where plates collide which can result in subduction and mountain building, and transform boundaries where plates slide past each other horizontally often causing earthquakes. The action along these plate boundaries is where many potentially dangerous geological phenomena like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions originate.

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264 views2 pages

Plate Tectonics - The Action Is at The Edges!

The document discusses the three types of plate boundaries: divergent boundaries where plates move apart and new crust is formed, convergent boundaries where plates collide which can result in subduction and mountain building, and transform boundaries where plates slide past each other horizontally often causing earthquakes. The action along these plate boundaries is where many potentially dangerous geological phenomena like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions originate.

Uploaded by

api-3808551
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Plate tectonics- The action is at the edges!

Page 1 of 2

The action is at the edges!


If you are lucky enough, or sometimes, unfortunate enough to live
where two plates meet, you've probably had first-hand experience with
moving plates! That’s because many potentially catastrophic geologic
phenomena, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis
originate at the narrow boundary zones between plates.
There are three basic things that can happen where the edge of one
plate meets another. The plates can push against each other, producing
a convergent plate boundary, the plates can move apart, forming a
divergent plate boundary, or the plates can slip past each other side to
side, which geologists call transform plate boundaries. Wherever
plates grind against each other, you can expect earthquakes.

Divergent plate boundaries


Almost all the Earth’s new crust forms at
divergent boundaries, but most are not well
known because they lie deep beneath the
oceans. These are zones where two plates move away from each other, allowing
magma from the mantle to rise up and solidify as new crust. Click here to learn
more about divergent plate boundaries.

Convergent plate
boundaries
This image shows a slice through
the Earth at a convergent plate
boundary. This view illustrates just
one of the ways that plates behave
when they collide. In this case, one
plate is pulled beneath another (subduction), forming a deep trench. The long,
narrow zone where the two plates meet is called a subduction zone.

The fate of the colliding plates depends mostly on what type of lithosphere they
are made of. Plates with thick, buoyant continental lithosphere behave very
differently from plates with thin, dense oceanic lithosphere! Click here to learn

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Plate tectonics- The action is at the edges! Page 2 of 2

more about convergent plate boundaries.

Transform plate boundaries


At transform plate boundaries plates
grind past each other side by side. This type
of boundary separates the North American
plate from the Pacific plate along the San
Andreas fault, a famous transform plate
boundary that’s responsible for many of
California’s earthquakes.

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