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Plate Tectonics

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11 views

Plate Tectonics

Uploaded by

orizen Ms
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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CONTINENTAL DRIFT, SEA FLOOR

SPREADING AND PLATE TECTONICS.


GEOL/MN*/506
• In 1620, Francis Bacon came up with
the idea ‘Jig-saw’ fit of the continents.
• He noted that the South American
continent fits perfectly with African
continent.
• Paleontology Geology was founded
and suggested fossil simillarities across
continents over the earth.
• Glossopteris, Lystrosaurs and
Mesosaurus are the most noted fossils
found overcontinents.
Assignment on GEOL/MN*/506: Physical Geology

The composition of the Earth and its interior structure.


CONTINENTAL DRIFT

• The theory was first proposed by Alfred Wegener in


1913.
• He spotted rock similarities across oceans basins and
mountain chains over the world.
• Found paleoclimatic evidence of glacial metamorphic
ground morraine (rock deposits) like Tillite in Nambia
and Chalk in UK.
• This evidence suggests that Nambia and UK must have
both been over equator over 200 million of years.
• 250 mya, A super continent exists called ‘Pangea’.
• The Pangea gradually breaks up - shifted and formed
today's continents.
• But failed to answer what forces that drives the
continents.
• Shortly after World War –II. Sonar – equipped vessels crisscrossed
the ocean floor, collecting the ocean-depth profile of sea floor
beneath them.
• Between 1945 – 1960, Scientists across the world mapped the sea
floor.
• American oceanic cartographer Marie Tharp created the first of
several maps that revealed the presence of an underwater
mountain ranges more than 16,000 Kms in Atlantic called The Mid-
Atlantic ridge.
The Sea Floor Spreading
• The hypothesis of sea floor spreading was proposed by Harry H.Hess in 1960.
• On the basis of Marie Tharp’s efforts and other new discoveries about the deep
ocean-floor.
• Hess postulated that molten materials from Earths’ mantle continuously wells
up along the crests of mid-oceanic ridges.
• As the magma cools, it is pushed away from the ridges.
• This creates a successively younger ocean floor.
• This flow of material is thought to bring about the migration, or drifting apart of
the continents.
Evidence of Sea floor spreading
• 1963, Vine and Matthews found that there are palaeomagnetic stripes either
side of the Indian ridge.
• It shows how Earths’ magnetic field reverses its polarities over time.
• As magma extrude and solidifies, they point the magnetic field at the time of
their solidification.
• This causes a series of alternating North and South facing parallel polarity
stripes of rock across the side of Indian Mid-oceanic ridges.
Tectonic Plates

• Tectonic plates are large, solid slabs of rock


that make up the Earths’ crust and
uppermost mantle, also known as the
Lithosphere.
• From Latin tectonicus and from Ancient
Greek tektonikós meaning 'pertaining to
building)
• They move independently on the Earths’
mantle, a thick layer of hot, flowing rock and
they fit together like a puzzle.
PLATE TECTONIC THEORY
• Plate tectonics is the scientific theory that Earth's lithosphere comprises a
number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4
billion years ago.
• Earth's lithosphere, the rigid outer shell of the planet including
the crust and upper mantle, is fractured into seven or eight major plates
(depending on how they are defined) and many minor plates or "platelets".
• The outer layers of the Earth are divided into Lithosphere and
asthenosphere.
• The lithosphere is cooler and more rigid, while the asthenosphere is hotter
and flows more easily.
• The key principle of plate tectonics is that the lithosphere exists as separate
and distinct tectonic plates, which ride on the fluid-like
solid the asthenosphere.
• Plate motions range from 10 to 40 millimetres per year (0.4 to 1.6 in/year)
at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (about as fast as fingernails grow), to about 160
millimetres per year (6.3 in/year) for the Nazca Plate (about as fast
as hair grows)
EARTHS’ MAJOR TECTONIC PLATES
1. The Pacific Plate
2. The North American Plate
3. The South American Plate
4. The Eurasian Plate
5. The African Plate
6. The Indo-Australian Plate
7. The Antarctic Plate

•. The plates are large, irregularly shaped sections of the Earth's outermost
solid shell, or lithosphere.
• They are in constant, slow motion, driven by the convection of the planet's
molten interior.
• The movement and interaction of these plates at their boundaries produces
many of the Earth's prominent geological features and natural hazards
Types of Plate Boundaries
There are three types:
1. Divergent boundaries: constructive boundaries or extensional boundaries. The two
plates slide apart from each other. E.g East African Rift.
2. Convergent Boundaries: Destructive boundaries or active margins. Two plates slides
towards each other forming either subduction zone or continental collision. E.g
Formation of Himalayan mountain ranges.
3. Transform boundaries: Conservative boundaries or strike-slip boundaries. Two
plates are slide, grinding past each other. Strong earthquake can occurs. E.g San
Andreas Fault.

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