Mechanisms of Plate Tectonics

Seafloor Spreading
-there are heavy elements in our planet that break apart through nuclear fission and release heat energy within the Earth, majority of this
heat is released within the Earth’s more fluid Mantle below the Lithosphere which we called Asthenosphere (like a pot of water on a stove being
heated from below)
-the Asthenosphere rolls over transferring the heat towards the surface through convection (where these convection currents in the
Asthenosphere rise up to the base of the Lithosphere which where we recall the Crust and upper most rigid Mantle)
-the current spreads apart to complete the upper part of the convection cell, this is where mid-ocean ridges form producing the mafic
magma (is liquid rock containing a high level of magnesium and iron) to make basaltic conjections and volcanoes in and on the Crust, the divergent
motion of the convection’s cells below ridges is an obvious explanation to form Seafloor Spreading.
We can rephrase this convection of the Asthenosphere mechanism for Seafloor spreading is the conveyor belt mechanism
Mechanism that Drives Seafloor Spreading:
1) Asthenosphere motion (conveyor belt)

conveyor belt

-driven by radioactive decay adding heat to the interior of the Earth

-It’s like the conveyor belt at the groceries store in which the Lithosphere groceries ride at the top at the conveyor belt Asthenosphere,
the up lifted ridge itself is form by the upwelling (is a process in which deep, cold water rises toward the surface. This graphic shows how displaced
surface waters are replaced by cold, nutrient-rich water that “wells up” from below) motion less dense Earth below and less dense heated
Lithosphere as new ocean crust moves away from the ridge it cools thus contracting and getting denser and leaves that upwelling portion of the
Mantle and so sinks a few kilometers to more common Seafloor elevation of 4-5 kilometers below the surface.
- because ridges mountainy slope flanks dipping way from their center a second driving force can be brough into play

2) Gravity sliding (ridge push) -aided by contraction of the slab as it leaves the ridges

-second driving force can be brough into play that being the fundamental force of gravity (take that rock and put into slope surface,
something happens to our gravitational force, tilt no motion, tilt far enough and we see that motion again but this time down in to the side) there is
a force constantly on the internal mass of the Lithosphere plate pushing outward from the central high ridge to year in year out, night and day

-has one component which is that cooling and contracting of the Lithosphere as it draws
away from the ridge which causes a little bit more tension on the ridge pulling them apart

3) Slab Pull (Trench Suction) Subduction Zone -important driving force

-subducting ocean Lithosphere progressively denser with depth

-subduction zones at the trenches of destruction, we created the ridges and destroy it at the trenches through subduction
in which ocean Lithosphere dies below an overriding plate where the two meet
-these subduction zones have one of the shallowest geothermal gradients and it can cross the solidest of the lighter
minerals going down to produce magma meanwhile the pressure still builds up significantly with depth so as a slab subducting plate
goes down and loses the less dense material to magma and it’s more dense mineral began to undergo phase changes to become
even more dense and response to increasing pressure, in the end it’s our old friend gravity that is going to do the work her

The older the ocean Lithosphere subducting and the longer the subduction zone the faster these tectonic plates tend to go.