Plate tectonics: Introduction Plate tectonics describes seismic activity, volcanism, mountain building, and various other Earth

processes in terms of the structure and mechanical behaviour of a small number of enormous rigid plates thought to constitute the outer part of the planet (i.e., the lithosphere). This all-encompassing theory grew out of observations and ideas about continental drift and seafloor spreading. Plate tectonics has revolutionized virtually every discipline of the Earth sciences since the late 1960s and early 1970s. It has served as a unifying model or paradigm for explaining geologic phenomena that were formerly considered in unrelated fashion. In 1912 the German meteorologist Alfred Wegener proposed that throughout most of geologic time there was only one continental mass, which he named Pangaea. At some time during the Mesozoic Era, Pangaea fragmented and the parts began to drift apart. Westward drift of the Americas opened the Atlantic Ocean, and the Indian block drifted across the Equator to join with Asia.

In 1937 the South African Alexander Du Toit modified Wegener's hypothesis by suggesting the existence of two primordial continents: Laurasia in the north and Gondwanaland in the south. Aside from the congruency of continental shelf margins across the Atlantic, proponents of continental drift have amassed impressive geologic evidence to support their views. Similarities in fossil terrestrial organisms in pre-Cretaceous (older than 140Ma) strata of Africa and South America and in pre-Jurassic rocks (older than 200Ma) of Australia, India, Madagascar, and Africa are explained if these continents were formerly connected but difficult to account for otherwise.

Fitting the Americas with the continents across the Atlantic brings together similar kinds of rocks and structures. Evidence of widespread glaciation during the Upper Paleozoic is found in Antarctica, southern South America, southern Africa, India, and Australia. If these continents were formerly united around the South Polar Region, this glaciation becomes explicable as a unified sequence of events in time and space.

Rock magnetism: Rock magnetism is the permanent magnetism locked in rocks, resulting from the orientation of the Earth's magnetic field at the time of formation of the rock in a past geological age. It is the source of information for the paleomagnetic studies of polar wandering and continental drift. Rock magnetism can derive from several natural processes, generally termed natural remanent magnetism, the most important being thermo-remanent magnetism. This arises when magnetic minerals forming in igneous rocks cool through the Curie point and when the magnetic domains within the individual minerals align themselves with the Earth's magnetic field, thus making a permanent record of its orientation. Ferromagnetic minerals such as magnetite acquire a permanent magnetization when they crystallize as components of igneous rock. The direction of their magnetization is the same as the direction of the Earth's magnetic field at the place and time of crystallization. A second mechanism operates when small grains of magnetic minerals settle into a sedimentary matrix, producing detrital remanent magnetism. It is hypothesized that the tiny grains orient themselves in the direction of the Earth's magnetic field during deposition and before the final consolidation of the rock. Volcanic rocks such as basalt are especially good recorders of paleomagnetism, but some sediments also align their magnetic particles with the Earth's field at the time of deposition. Investigators therefore have at their disposal fossil compasses that indicate, like any magnet suspended in the Earth's field, the direction to the magnetic pole and that yield the latitude of their origin. Studies of the remanent magnetism in suitable rocks of different ages from over the world indicate that the magnetic poles were in different places at different times. When we join these poles we get what are called polar wander paths. The polar wandering paths are different for the several continents, but in important instances these differences are compensated when we assume that continents now separated were formerly joined. The curves for Europe and North America, for example, are reconciled by the assumption that America has drifted about 30 westward relative to Europe since the Triassic Period (195 to 230Ma ago). In the early 1960s a major breakthrough in understanding the way the modern Earth works came from two studies of the ocean floor.

Harry H. Hess and Robert S. Dietz suggested that new ocean crust was formed along mid-oceanic ridges between separating continents. Drummond H. Matthews and Frederick J. Vine proposed that the new oceanic crust acted like a magnetic tape recorder insofar as magnetic anomaly strips parallel to the ridge had been magnetized alternately in normal and reversed order, reflecting the changes in polarity of the Earth's magnetic field.

Harry H. Hess and Robert S. Dietz suggested that new ocean crust was formed along mid-oceanic ridges between separating continents. Drummond H. Matthews and Frederick J. Vine proposed that the new oceanic crust acted like a magnetic tape recorder insofar as magnetic anomaly strips parallel to the ridge had been magnetized alternately in normal and reversed order, reflecting the changes in polarity of the Earth's magnetic field. This theory of seafloor spreading then needed testing, and the opportunity arose from major advances in deep-water drilling technology. The Joint Oceanographic Institutions Deep Earth Sampling (JOIDES) project began in 1969, continued with the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP), and, since 1976, with the International Phase of Ocean Drilling (IPOD) project. These projects have produced more than 500 boreholes in the floor of the world's oceans, and the results have been as outstanding as the plate-tectonic theory itself. They confirm that the oceanic crust is everywhere younger than about 200Ma and that the stratigraphic age determined by micropaleontology of the overlying oceanic sediments is close to the age of the oceanic crust calculated from the magnetic anomalies. The plate-tectonic theory, which embraces both continental drift and seafloor spreading, was formulated in the mid-1960s by J. Tuzo Wilson. This theory holds that the Earth's upper shell, or lithosphere, consists of six major and 22 or so minor rigid slabs called plates. The thickness of each of these plates extends to a depth of roughly 80 to 150 kilometers. These plates move horizontally in relation to one another on a more ductile asthenosphere. New lithosphere is created at mid-oceanic ridges by the upwelling and cooling of magma from the Earth's mantle. The horizontally moving plates are believed to be consumed at the ocean trenches, where a subduction process carries the lithosphere downward along the Benioff zones into the Earth's interior. Perhaps these two processes help maintain the volume of the earth at a constant. Location of major earthquake belts is broadly in agreement with this kinematic model. Earthquake sources are concentrated along the mid-oceanic ridges, which correspond to divergent plate boundaries.

At the subduction zones, which are associated with convergent plate boundaries, intermediate- and deep-focus earthquakes in the Benioff zone mark the location of the upper part of a dipping plate. The focal mechanisms indicate that the stresses are aligned with the dip of the lithosphere underneath the adjacent continent or island arc. Some earthquakes associated with mid-oceanic ridges are confined to strike-slip faults that offset the ridge crests. The majority of the earthquakes occurring along such horizontal shear faults are characterized by slip motions. Examples of plate boundaries of this kind, which are sometimes called fracture zones, include the San Andreas Fault in California and the North Anatolian fault system in Turkey. Such plate boundaries are the site of interplate earthquakes of shallow focus.