Edible Plate Tectonics

You all get one Oreo.

Don’t eat it yet!

Don’t do anything with it yet, just look at it

with amazement, because what you are
looking at is….. The earth!
TECTONICS:

• From the Greek “tecton”

• builder
• architect
• The study of large features on Earth’s surface and the processes that
formed them.
PLATE TECTONICS:

• Large features…
• continents
• ocean basins
• mountain ranges
• and processes…
• earthquakes
• volcanic eruptions
• due to movement of plates of Earth’s outer shell.
Cracked Egg Shell!
 Parks and Plates
©2002 Robert J. Lillie
Oreo plate tectonics

These four plate tectonic processes shape the earth and its landscapes
in different ways:

•Divergent plate boundaries

•Divergent plate boundaries
•Transform plate boundaries
•Hot spots
• Now…. carefully remove the top biscuit WITHOUT BREAKING IT!

• Once it is removed, you have to break it IN HALF. Try to make the

two halves similar in size.
DIVERGENT Plate Boundary:
Seafloor Spreading
Divergent Plate Boundary

Parks and Plates

©2002 Robert J. Lillie
DIVERGENT Plate Boundary:
Seafloor Spreading
Seafloor Spreading &
Plate Tectonics
• New ocean basins form from volcanism
• Ocean floor forms IN BETWEEN pieces that have split
• SEAFLOOR SPREADING
Convergent Plate Boundary
CONVERGENT Plate Boundary
Transform Plate Boundary

Parks and Plates

©2002 Robert J. Lillie
 e
at
th Pl
or n
N ca
i
er
Am
ic
cif e
Pa lat
P
 5 cm/year
x 100 years
= 5 metres per
century

Am No
eri rth
can
Pla
P ac te
ific
Pla
te
Hot Spot

Parks and Plates

©2002 Robert J. Lillie
 Mauna Kea
 14,000
feet
Mauna Loa
 14,000
feet
 TALLER THAN
MOUNT EVEREST!
18,000 ft
below sea
level
14,000 feet
above sea level
Divergent Plate Boundary:
Seafloor Spreading

Parks and Plates

©2002 Robert J. Lillie
 Parks and Plates
©2002 Robert J.
Lillie

Convergent Plate Boundary:

Subduction
Transform Plate Boundary:
Transform (Strike-Slip) Faulting

Parks and Plates

©2002 Robert J. Lillie
 Hot Spot:
Plate Interior

Parks and Plates

©2002 Robert J. Lillie
Name the four processes!

• Which four plate tectonic processes shape the earth?