Plate Tectonics

Internal Structure of the Earth

A. Inner Core
- Solid sphere about 1330 km in radius situated at Earth’s center
- Composed primarily of a nickel-iron alloy, with small amounts of some unknown elements.

B. Outer Core
- 2250 km thick
- Composed of nickel-iron alloy but with less iron than the solid inner core
- Very hot that the metals are in liquid state

C. Mantle
- 2900 km thick
- Thickest layer of the earth
- Comprises 70% of Earth’s volume
- Dense rock that lies between the core and crust
- Made up of volcanic rocks
- Solid silicate that behaves like a very vicious fluid because of hot temperature

D. Crust
- Outermost layer of the Earth
- Thinnest layer of the Earth
- Primarily composed of silicates with small percentages of various metals
- Where all life forms are found
- Oxygen is the most abundant element in the crust followed by silicates/silicon

Types of Crusts

A. Continental crust
- Forms the continents
- Thick layer (10-70km)
- Buoyant (the ability of a material to stay afloat or float above something)
- Less dense than oceanic crust
- Contains some of the oldest rocks on Earth

B. Oceanic Crust
- Found below the oceans
- Thin layer (7km)
- Less buoyant
- Denser than continental crust
- Geologically young compared to continental crust
Continental Drift Theory
- Complementary coastlines of some continents suggest that they are once joined and slowly
drifted apart.
- Movement of continents explained by motion of crustal plates - Plate Teconics
- Proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1912 but was not widely accepted
- Only accepted during the late 1950’s after geological and geophysical findings by several
scientists supported the theory

Layers of the Earth

A. Lithosphere
- Rigid plate made up of the crust and the upper part of the mantle
B. Astenosphere
- Viscous and ductile region of the upper mantle

Plate tectonics
- Motion of the earth’s crustal plates
- Interaction of plates give rise to characteristic structures of tectonic features
- When crusts moves, it results to mountains, volcanoes, trenches and etc.
- Tectonic refers to the deformation of the crust as a consequence of plate interaction
- How continents drifted apart is answered by plate tectonics

Hot Mantle Convection Cell (HMCC)

- How plates move
- In the mantle, hot material rises towards the litospehere
- The heat coming from the outer core heats up the materials in the mantel and once the
material in the mantel becomes hot, it rises and goes up to the base of the lithosphere.
- When the hot material reaches the base of the lithosphere, it cools and sinks back down
through the mantle.
- The cool material is replaced by a hotter material, and so on forming a large “convection cell”
- This slow but incessant movement in the mantle causes the rigid tectonic plates to move
around the earth’s surface.

In summary: plates of the lithosphere are moved around by the underlying hot mantle convection
cells.
Types of Plate Boundaries

A. Divergent
- Where the plates move away from each other
- Spreading ridges
- As plates move apart, new material is erupted to fill the gap
- Material coming from the asstenosphere comes up into the lithosphere
- A continental rift is formed when two continental plates diverge
- A mid-ocean ridge is what is formed when oceanic plates diverge
- Example: Iceland has a divergent boundary running through its middle. They are separated by
2 plates calle North American and Eurasian plate.

B. Convergent
- Where plates move towards each other
- They are colliding with each other

Types of convergent plate boundaries based on involved crustal plates:

1. Continental-Continental
- When continental crust pushes against continental crust, neither side of the boundary wants to
sink beneath the other side.
- As a result, the two plates push against each other and the crust buckles and cracks pushing
up high mountain ranges.
- This type of collision results to formation of mountains.

2. Continental-Oceanic
- Subduction occurs wherein the denser oceanic crust sinks below the continental crust
- The point where they collide is the subduction zone
- Subducting slab is the one big piece of the oceanic crust moving downwards
- Oceanic crust which decends into the mantle/astenoshphere
- Subduction leads to the formation of volcanoes

3. Oceanic-Oceanic
- The older the oceanic crust is the denser it becomes
- In an oceanic-oceanic collision, the older and denser crust sinks below the younger oceanic
crust. Through this, subduction also occurs.
- This collision results to the formation of trenches

C. Transform
- Where plates slide past each other
- Plates move forward and backward
- The pressure made by the plates forms fault line
- Fault lines sit in between two continental plates
Pacific Ring of Fire
- The red line shows the location of active volcanic activity
- Corresponds with plate boundaries

- The red dots show the locations of earthwuake origin

- Black triangles are areas of active volcanoes