Inside Earth

Continental Drift
 The Earth’s Layers
• The Earth is made of many
different and distinct layers. The
deeper layers are composed of
heavier materials; they are hotter,
denser and under much greater
pressure than the outer layers.

• Natural forces interact with and

affect the earth’s crust, creating
the landforms, or natural features,
found on the surface of the earth.

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 Before we start to look at the forces that contribute to landforms,lets
look at the different layers of the earth that play a vital role in the
formation of our continents, mountains, volcanoes, etc.

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 Crust

• crust - the rigid, rocky outer surface of the Earth,

• The crust is composed of two rocks. The continental crust is
mostly granite. The oceanic crust is basalt. Basalt is much
denser than the granite. Because of this the less dense
continents ride on the denser oceanic plates.

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 Crust

• The Earth's Crust is like the skin

of an apple. It is very thin in
comparison to the other three
layers. The crust is only about 3-5
miles (8 kilometers) thick under
the oceans (oceanic crust) and
about 25 miles (32 kilometers)
thick under the continents
(continental crust).

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The Lithospheric Plates

The crust of the Earth is

broken into many pieces
called plates. The plates
"float" on the soft, semi-
rigid asthenosphere.

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 The Lithosphere

The crust and the upper layer of the mantle together make up a
zone of rigid, brittle rock called the Lithosphere.

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 The Mantle

• The Mantle is the largest layer

of the Earth.
• The middle mantle is
composed of very hot dense
rock that flows like asphalt
under a heavy weight. The
movement of the middle
mantle (asthenosphere) is the
reason that the crustal plates
of the Earth move.
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Convection Currents

The middle mantle "flows"

because of convection
currents. Convection
currents are caused by the
very hot material at the
deepest part of the mantle
rising, then cooling and
sinking again --repeating this
cycle over and over.

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The Outer Core

• The core of the Earth is like a ball

of very hot metals.
• The outer core is so hot that
the metals in it are all in the liquid
state. The outer core is composed
of the melted metals of nickel and
iron.

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The Inner Core

• The inner core of the Earth

has temperatures and
pressures so great that the
metals are squeezed
together and are not able to
move about like a liquid, but
are forced to vibrate in
place like a solid.

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DID YOU KNOW?
• Photographs of the earth taken from space show clearly that it
is truly a ”watery planet.”
• More than 70 percent of the earth’s surface is covered by water,
mainly the salt water of oceans and seas.

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 Continental Drift Theory
• In the early 1900s a German explorer
and scientist (Alfred Wegener)
proposed the continental drift theory.
• He proposed that there was once a
single “super continent” called
Pangaea.
• He believed that the continent floated
on the oceanic crust (like an iceberg in
the ocean).
• Most scientist rejected his theory due
to lack of evidence.

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Evidence of continental drift
• Continents fit together like a jigsaw puzzle
• Fossils match across oceans
• Rock types and mountain ranges match across oceans
• Climate Evidence (Glacial Deposits)

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 “Puzzle Pieces”

• Continents look like they could be

part of a giant jigsaw puzzle

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 Distribution of Fossils

• Plant and animal fossils

found on the coastlines
of different continents

Glossopteris…seed much
to large to be windblown
Mesosaurus…lived in fresh
water and could not have
lived in salt water

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 Sequence of Rocks

• Same rock patterns found

in South America, India,
Africa, Antarctica and
Australia

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 Climate
• Tropical plant remains (coal deposits)
found in Antarctica
• Glacial deposits in Africa, South America,
India, and Australia during the same time
• Warm weather plants have been found in
the Arctic… but it’s not warm there!
• Glacier deposits have been discovered in
tropical and desert locations…it’s not cold
there, either!
• The continents had to have been at
different locations in the geological past.

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 Glacial Striations…Scratches glaciers leave on rocks as they travel
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Sea-floor
Spreading
• Ocean floor moves like a conveyor belt carrying continents with it.
• New ocean floor forms along cracks in the ocean crust as molten
material erupts from the mantle spreading out and pushing older
rocks to the sides of the crack. New ocean floor is continually
added by the process of sea-floor spreading.

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Evidence of sea-floor spreading.

1. Evidence from Molten Material

– Rocks shaped like pillows (rock
pillows) show that molten material
has erupted again and again from
cracks along the mid-ocean ridge
and cooled quickly

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Mid-Ocean Ridge

The mid-ocean ridge system is the

most extensive chain of mountains
on earth, but more than 90% of this
mountain range lies in the deep
ocean. The mid-ocean ridge wraps
around the globe for more than
65,000 km like the seam of a
baseball.

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Mid-Ocean Ridge
• Mid-ocean ridges occur along the kind of
plate boundary where new ocean floor is
created as the plates spread apart.
"divergent plate boundary." The plates
spread apart at rates of 1 cm to 20 cm per
year. As oceanic plates move apart, rock
melts and wells up from tens of
kilometers deep. Some of the molten
rock ascends all the way up to the
seafloor, producing enormous volcanic
eruptions of basalt, and building the
longest chain of volcanoes in the world!

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Evidence of sea-floor spreading.

2. Evidence from Magnetic

Stripes – Rocks that make
up the ocean floor lie in a
pattern of magnetized
stripes which hold a record
of the reversals in Earth’s
magnetic field

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Evidence of sea-floor spreading.

3. Evidence from Drilling

Samples – Core samples
from the ocean floor show
that older rocks are found
farther from the ridge;
youngest rocks are in the
center of the ridge

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Evidence of sea-floor spreading.

Sea-Floor Spreading –
Harry Hess in the
1960’s; the process that
continually adds new
material to the ocean
floor while pushing
older rocks away from
the ridge

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Plate Tectonics
 Plate Tectonics

• Most of these changes in the earth’s surface takes place so

slowly that they are not immediately noticeable to the human
eye.
• The idea that the earth’s landmasses have broken apart,
rejoined, and moved to other parts of the globe forms part of
the plate tectonic theory.

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 Plate Tectonic Theory
Along the mid-ocean ridge the seafloor is pulling apart and the two parts are moving in
opposite directions, carrying along the continents and oceans that rest on top of them.
These pieces of Earth’s top layer are called tectonic plates. They are moving very slowly,
but constantly. (Most plates are moving about as fast as your fingernails are growing --
not very fast!) Currently Earth’s surface layers are divided into nine very large plates and
several smaller ones.

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 Plate Tectonic Theory

According to the theory of

plate tectonics, the earth’s
outer shell is not one solid
piece of rock. Instead the
earth’s crust is broken into
a number of moving
plates. The plates vary in
size and thickness.

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 Plate Tectonic Theory
These plates are not anchored in place but slide over a hot and bendable
layer of the mantle

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 Plate Tectonic Theory

• As mentioned earlier, those tectonic plates are always

moving.
• pulling away from each other (Divergent)
• crashing head-on (Convergent)
• or sliding past each other. (Transform)

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Divergent Boundaries

• Boundary between two

plates that are moving
apart or rifting
→
• RIFTING causes
SEAFLOOR SPREADING

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 They’re Pulling Apart!
• When plates pull away from one another
they form a diverging plate boundary, or
spreading zone.

Thingvellir, the spreading zone in Iceland between the North

American (left side) and Eurasian (right side) tectonic plates.
January 2003.

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 Features of Divergent
Boundaries
• Mid-ocean ridges
• Rift valleys
• Fissure volcanoes

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Convergent Boundaries
• Boundaries
between two
plates that are
colliding
→

• There are 3
types…

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 Ocean to Continent
• Ocean plate colliding with a
less dense continental plate
• Subduction Zone: where the
more dense plate slides
under the less dense plate
• VOLCANOES occur at
subduction zones

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 Ocean to Continent
• Subduction – Process
by which the ocean floor
sinks beneath a deep-
ocean trench and back
into the mantle; allows
part of the ocean floor to
sink back into the
mantle

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 Ocean to Continent

• Deep-Ocean Trench
– Occurs at
subduction zones.
Deep underwater
canyons form where
oceanic crust bends
downward

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 Ocean to Continent

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 Ocean to Ocean
• Ocean plate colliding
with another ocean
plate
• The more dense plate
slides under the less
dense plate creating a
subduction zone called
a TRENCH

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 Converging... They crash!
And they’re both ocean plates!

• When both are oceanic

plates, one slides
under the other. Often
an island group forms
at this boundary.

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 Continents to Continents
• A continental plate
colliding with another
continental plate
• Have Collision Zones:
• The plates push against
each other, creating
mountain ranges.

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They Crash and are both continental plates!
• Earth’s highest mountain
range, the Himalayas, was
formed millions of years ago
when the Indo-Australian
Plate crashed into the
Eurasian Plate. Even today,
the Indo-Australian Plate
continues to push against
the Eurasian Plate at a rate
of about 5 cm a year!

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Transformed Boundaries

• Boundary between two plates that

are sliding past each other
• EARTHQUAKES along faults

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San Andreas Fault, CA
• For example: Here, the San Andreas Fault
lies on the boundary between two
tectonic plates, the north American Plate
and the Pacific Plate. The two plates are
sliding past each other at a rate of 5 to 6
centimeters each year. This fault
frequently plagues California with
earthquakes.
• These areas are likely to have a rift valley,
earthquake, and volcanic action.

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End..