Lesson 4

CAUSES OF PLATE
MOVEMENT

CAUSES OF PLATE MOVEMENT

The force that causes most of the plate movement is thermal
convection, where heat from the Earth's interior causes currents of
hot rising magma and cooler sinking magma to flow, moving the
plates of the crust along with them. In ridge push and slab pull,
gravity is acting on the plate to cause the movement.

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 What Causes Plate Tectonics?
➢ Convection in the mantle, as the plastic asthenosphere
flows, carrying the plates with it.

➢ This is probably aided slab pull at subduction zones and

ridge push at mid ocean ridges and rising plumes in the
mantle.
⋆

⋆ Recent research has shown that the major driving force

for most plate movement is slab pull, because the
plates with more of their edges being subducted are the
faster-moving ones. However, ridge push is also
presented in recent research to be a force that drives
the movement of plates.

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There are few competing theories that attempt to explain
what drives the movement of tectonic plates . Three of
the forces that have been proposed as the main drivers of
tectonic plate movement.

THREE MAIN DRIVERS OF TECTONIC

PLATE
❑ Mantle Convection Current
❑ Ridge Push
❑ Slab Pull

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 Mantle Convection Current
⋆ Mantle Convection Current – this theory was proposed by Arthur
Holmes in 1929.

⋆ Using Wegener’s observations, Holmes suggested that as the

mantle became heated its density decreases and eventually rises
up. He added that when the material cooled, it would sink ,
exhibiting a circling behavior that he described like a conveyor belt.

⋆ 1. MANTLE CONVECTION CURRENT– warm mantle currents

drive and carry plates of lithosphere along a conveyor belt.

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 Mantle convection
⋆ To understand mantle convection, imagine a pot of water on a hot
stove. The water at the bottom of the pot near the heat source
becomes hot and expands, making it lighter (less dense) than the
water above. The hot, low density water rises, and cooler, denser
water sinks and flows in from the sides. This water then gets heated
and rises, and the cycle continues. This creates a circular pattern of
rising and sinking water called a convection cell. (To test this, try
sprinkling a few flakes of spice in the center of a rapidly boiling pot of
water. The flakes will move outwards to the edge of the pot as
warmer water rises and pushes them aside).

⋆ Heat is continuously flowing outward from Earth’s interior,

and the transfer of heat from the core to the mantle causes
convection in the mantle (Figure 4.3.1). Even though the
mantle material is essentially solid rock, it is sufficiently plastic
(fluid) to slowly flow (at rates of centimeters per year) as long
as a steady force is applied to it. This convection is a driving
force for the movement of tectonic plates, as the horizontal
movements of mantle under the crust drag the plates with
them. At places where convection currents in the mantle are
moving upward, new lithosphere forms and the plates move
apart (diverge). Where two plates are converging (and the
convective flow is downward), one plate will
be subducted (pushed down) into the mantle beneath the
other.
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⋆
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2. RIDGE PUSH (Buoyant upwelling mantle at mid-ocean

ridges) - newly-formed plates at oceanic ridges are warm, and
so have a higher elevation at the oceanic ridges are warm, and
so have a higher elevation at the oceanic ridge than the
colder, more dense plate material further away; gravity causes
the higher plate at the ridge to push away the lithosphere that
lies further from the ridge.

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 RIDGE PUSH

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⋆ 3. SLAB PULL – older, colder plates sink at subduction

zones, because as they cool, they become denser than
the underlying mantle. The cooler sinking plates pulls
the rest of the warmer plate along behind it.

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 SLAB PULL

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⋆ The ridge push/ slab pull model also relies on mantle

convection, but in this case it is not simply the traction
from the convection cell that moves the plates. In this
model, plates move through a combination of pull from
the weight of the subducting edge of the plates, and
through the outward pushing of an ocean ridge where
magma is rising and forming new crust.

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✓ Geologist have hypothesized that the movement of tectonic

plates is related to convection currents in the earth’s mantle.
Tremendous heat and pressure within the earth cause the hot
magma to flow in convection currents. These currents cause the
movement of the tectonic plates that make up the earth’s crust.

✓ Lithospheric plates are part of a planetary scale thermal

convection system. The energy source for plate tectonics is the
earth’s internal heat while the forces moving the plates are the
“ridge push” and “slab pull” gravity forces.
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THANK YOU!!!
Prepared by:
Ms. Rosavilla G. Aquino, LPT

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BIG CONCEPT
Bring the attention of your audience over a
key concept using icons or illustrations

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