Movement of Plates

- Folding & Faulting

- Plate Boundaries
- Plate Movement

Key Qs:
1. What are the types of plate boundaries?
2. What causes plate tectonics to move?

- Earth’s surface is composed of tectonic plates that are slowly but constantly moving.
- Plate tectonics experience different types of forces; tension and compression.

Tension occurs when the plates are pulled apart causing either an elongation or a breakage in the crust.
effect/result: volcanic islands and mid-oceanic ridges are formed.

Compression occurs when the plates are pushed toward each other causing them to crash.
effect/result: mountains and earthquakes are formed.

Folding occurs when the Earth’s crust bends away from a flat surface
Anticline - upward bend
Syncline - downward bend

Faulting happens when the Earth’s crust completely breaks and slides past each other.
- Causes earthquakes to occur.

THREE TYPES OF PLATE BOUNDARIES

1. Convergent - Two plates move toward each other: oceanic-oceanic, oceanic-continental

- Subduction - denser sinks over the other
- Formation of TRENCHES and VOLCANOES

2. Divergent - Two plates move away from each other: magma rises and forms new land.
- Older rocks are pushed aside
- Formation of RIDGES

3. Transform-Fault - When plates slide past each other: two plates move/slide in opposite directions.
- Formation of Faults

THEORY OF PLATE TECTONICS

Alfred Wegener

Wegener proposed that all of the continents once formed a “supercontinental” called Pangaea.

Evidence: Geographical (continental coast), Biological (fossils found in diff. continents - same fossils), and Climate
Evidence (glacial period occurred in the areas of South America, South Africa, South India, Antarctica, and Australia)

- Continents rest on massive slabs of rock called TECTONIC PLATES

- Tectonic plates are always moving due to the motion of the region in the upper mantle called ASTHENOSPHERE
- Convection currents
- Some of the most dynamic sites of tectonic activity are seafloor spreading and giant rift valleys.