CHAPTER 2: PLATE TECTONICS: A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION UNFOLDS

Plate tectonics is the first theory to provide a comprehensive view of the processes that produced Earth’s
major surface features.

Tectonic processes – are processes that deform Earth’s crust to create major structural features.

Scientific revolution – term used when a profound reversal in scientific thought occurred.

The tallest mountains on Earth, the Himalayas, were created when the subcontinent of India
collided with South-eastern Asia.

CONTINENTAL DRIFT: AN IDEA BEFORE ITS TIME

Until the late 1960s, most geologists believed that the ocean basins and continents had fixed
geographic positions. The Continental Drift Theory was discarded by North American geologists primarily
because of their lack of knowledge of the gathered evidence from different continents. Plate tectonics
was proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1912 and has been developed from the 1950s through the 1970s into
Continental Drift. He perished in 1930 during an expedition to Greenland.

Eduard Suess (1831-1914) was able to piece together evidence for a ‘supercontinent’ comprising
South America, Africa, India and Australia.

In 1915, Alfred Wegener wrote “The Origin of Continents and Oceans” which outlined his hypothesis
called Continental Drift. He suggested a supercontinent named Pangea, which he then explained that
during the Mesozoic era, this supercontinent began to fragment into smaller landmasses.

EVIDENCE OF PANGEA:

1. Continental Jigsaw Puzzle

2. Fossils matching across the seas
3. Geologic features and rock types
4. Ancient Climate

CONTINENTAL JIGSAW PUZZLE

On the lower right, shorelines

were used to ‘fit’ these
continents together.

The modern reconstruction of

Pangea was created by Sir
Edward Bullard with the use of
the seaward edge of its
continental shelf.
 FOSSILS MATCHING ACROSS THE SEAS

Mesosaurus – an aquatic freshwater reptile.

Limited to rocks of Permian age in Eastern
South America and Southwestern Africa.

Glossopteris – tongue-shaped leaves and

seeds too large to be carried by the wind is
known as ‘seed fern’. Found in all continents
and only grows in cool climate, therefore, it
was much closer to the South Pole.

Opponents of Continental Drift used

these to explain the migration of the said
fossils however, modern maps of the
seafloor substantiate Wegener’s views
and show no such sunken land bridges.

GEOLOGIC FEATURES AND ROCK TYPES

Wegener found a highly deformed igneous rock in Brazil that resemble similar rocks of the same age in
Africa. The mountain belt that includes the Appalachian trends northeastward through the eastern
United States and disappears off the coast of Newfoundland (an island in Canada) (Fig 2.6A). Mountains
and structures with relative age are found in British Isles and Scandinavia. When these landmasses are
position as Wegener proposed (Figure 2.6B), the mountain chains form a nearly continuous belt.

ANCIENT CLIMATES

Ancient climate is another evidence wherein he

found evidence for a glacial period dating to the
late Paleozoic era in Southern Africa, South
America, Australia and India. This meant that vast
ice sheets covered the Southern Hemisphere and
India wherein the Northern Hemisphere has a
warm, moist climate. He suggested that the
southern continents were joined together in the
supercontinent of Pangea and located near the
Southpole rather than the extreme global cooling
that was suggested by another scientist.

This would account for the polar conditions

required to generate glacial ice over these
landmasses and at the same time, today’s northern
continents are located nearer the equator and
account for the tropical swamps that generated the
vast coal deposits.

THE GREAT DEBATE

1. He proposed that gravitational forces of the Moon and Sun were capable of moving the
continents.
 Which would then halt the rotation of the Earth.
2. He suggested that the larger and sturdier continents broke through thinner oceanic crust.
 There is no evidence that the ocean floor was weak to permit passage of the continents
without the continents being appreciably deformed in the process.

THE THEORY OF PLATE TECTONICS

Theory of Plate Tectonics (1968) states that the crust and upper mantle constitute the lithosphere. The
density of the overall oceanic lithosphere is greater than the overall density of the continental
lithosphere. The lithosphere responds by bending or breaking out not flowing.
The asthenosphere is the weak region in the mantle that lies below the lithosphere. Partial melting
occurs thus it responds to forces by flowing. Because of these differences, Earth’s lithosphere is detached
from the asthenosphere, which allows these layers to move independently.

The lithosphere is broken into lithospheric plates that are in constant motion with respect to one
another. The largest plate is the Pacific plate. None of the plates are defined by the margins of a single
continent. The minor plates excluding the Arabian plate are composed of mostly oceanic lithosphere.
There are several smaller plates called microplates have been identified but not shown.

The plates move rigidly relative to all other plates therefore, most interactions and deformations occur
along their boundaries.

Plate boundaries were first established by plotting the locations of earthquakes and volcanoes.

Divergent plate boundaries – two plates move apart, resulting in upwelling and partial melting of hot
material from the mantle to create new seafloor.

Convergent plate boundaries – where two plates move towards each another, resulting either in oceanic
lithosphere descending beneath an overriding plate, eventually to be reabsorbed into the mantle or
possibly the collision of two continental blocks to create a mountain belt.

Transform plate boundaries – where two plates grind past each other without the production or
destruction of lithosphere.

40% of all plate boundaries account for divergent and convergent and the remaining 20%
account for transform boundaries.

DIVERGENT PLATE BOUNDARIES AND SEAFLOOR SPREADING

Most divergent plate boundaries are located along the crests of oceanic ridges. This type of boundary is
also thought to of as constructive plate margins and also called as spreading centers because this is
where the new oceanic lithosphere forms.

Oceanic ridge – (has a width ranging from 1000-4000 km) elevated areas of the seafloor characterized by
high heat flow and volcanism.

Oceanic ridge system – longest topographic feature on Earth’s surface (70,000 km).

Rift valley – deep canyon-like structure found along the crest of some ridge segments. Evidence of
tensional forces actively pulling the oceanic crust apart at the ridge crest.

Seafloor spreading - the mechanism that operates along the oceanic ridge system

The oceanic ridge is elevated because the newly created oceanic lithosphere is hot and less
dense than the cooler rocks located away from the ridge axis. As the new lithosphere forms, it is being
displaced away from the zone of mantle upwelling thus it begins to cool and contract, thereby increasing
density. This thermal contraction increases the ocean depth away from the ridge crest. After 80 Ma, it
had stabilized and is now located in the deep-ocean basin.

Divergent boundaries can develop within a continent and be separated by an ocean basin, an
example of this would be the East African Rift Valley. Continental rifting begins when tensional forces act
on the lithosphere. The stretching promotes mantle upwelling of the overlying lithosphere (A) therefore
thins the lithosphere. As it experiences further tensional forces, the broken crustal fragments sink,
generating a continental rift (B,C) which can widen to form a sea and eventually a new ocean basin (D).
Continental rift – an elongated depression that can widen to form a narrow sea.

Ocean basin – a portion of the crust filled by water where sediments are being deposited and tectonic
plates meet.

CONVERGENT PLATE BOUNDARIES AND SUBDUCTION

Convergent boundaries are also called as subduction zones. Subduction occurs because the density of
the descending lithospheric plate is greater than the density of the underlying asthenosphere. This type
of boundary is thought as destructive plate margins.

There are few locations where the continental lithosphere was forced to subduct below an
overriding plate to relative shallow depths. For example, when seafloor spreading occurs near a
subduction zone, the subducting lithosphere is young and buoyant, as these two plates converge, the
overriding plate scrapes over the top of the subducting plate below. An example would be Peru-Chile
trench located along the west coast of South America.

Deep-ocean trenches – long, linear depressions in the seafloor located offshore of either a continent or a
chain of volcanic island. These are produced when the oceanic lithosphere bends as it descends into the
mantle along subduction zones.

The angle at which oceanic lithosphere subducts depends on its age and density. As oceanic
lithosphere ages, it cools hence it thickens and become denser. In parts of the western Pacific, some
oceanic lithosphere is 180 million years old—the thickest and densest in today’s oceans. The very dense
slabs in this region typically plunge into the mantle at angles approaching 90 degrees. This largely
explains why most trenches in the western Pacific are deeper than trenches in the eastern Pacific.

OCEANIC-CONTINENTAL CONVERGENCE

Flux melting occurs due to the water content

that is brought by the sediments and the
oceanic crust. Partial melting then occurs to
generate molten material that is mixed with
unmelted mantle rock. Being less dense than
the surrounding mantle, this material gradually
rises toward the surface that in some cases
may rise to a volcanic eruption. However,
much of this material solidifies at depth which
thickens the crust.

Continental volcanic arcs – mountain systems

produced by volcanic activity associated with the subduction of oceanic lithosphere (e.g. Andes –
produced by the subduction of Nazca beneath S.American)

OCEANIC-OCEANIC CONVERGENCE
 A descending oceanic slab descends beneath
another that initiates volcanic activity. Water
released from the subducting slab of oceanic
lithosphere triggers melting in the hot wedge
of mantle rock above. In this setting, volcanoes
grow up from the ocean floor rather than upon
a continental platform.

Volcanic island arc or Island arc – the newly

formed land after a sustained subduction consisting of an arc-shaped chain of volcanic island that is large
enough to emerge as islands. Typically made of volcanic cones underlain by oceanic crust.

Most volcanic island arcs are located in the western Pacific. Only two are located in the Atlantic –
the Lesser Antilles arc and the Sandwich Islands. The Lesser Antilles are produced by the subduction of the
Atlantic seafloor beneath the Caribbean plate.

CONTINENTAL-CONTINENTAL CONVERGENCE

It is produced when one landmass moves

toward the margin of another because of the
intervening seafloor (A).

Since the buoyance of continental material

inhibits it from being subducted to a great
depth, a collision between two converging
fragments ensues (B).

This process folds and deforms the

accumulation of sediments and
sedimentary rocks along the
continental margins. The result is
the formation of a new mountain
belt composed of deformed
sedimentary and metamorphic
rocks.

The collision of India and

Eurasia formed Himalayas. The
collision occurred 50Ma when the
subcontinent of India rammed into
Asia. This collision caused the
continental crust to shorten and
thicken, this also caused the Alps,
Appalachians and Urals formed as
continental fragments collided.
 TRANSFORM PLATE BOUNDARIES

The nature of transform faults was discovered in 1965 by J. Tuzo Wilson who proposed that
these large faults connected two spreading centers (divergent boundaries) or two trenches (convergent
boundaries).

Most transform faults are found on the ocean floor, where they offset segments of the oceanic ridge
system, producing a step-like plate margin (A). Typically, transform faults are part of prominent linear
breaks in the seafloor known as fracture zones, which include both active transform faults and their
inactive extensions into the plate interior (B).
The inactive faults are
preserved as linear topographic
depressions. The trend of these
fracture zones roughly parallels
the direction of plate motion at
the time of their formation.
Transform faults also provide
the means by which the oceanic
crust created at ridge crests can
be transported to a site of
destruction – the deep-ocean
trenches.

Notice that the Juan de Fuca

plate moves in a south-easterly
direction, eventually being subducted under the west coast of the United States and Canada. The
southern end of this plate is bounded by a transform fault called the Mendocino Fault. This transform
boundary connects the Juan de Fuca Ridge to the Cascadia subduction zone. Therefore, it facilitates the
movement of the crustal material created at the Juan de Fuca Ridge to its destination beneath the North
American continent.
 Transform faults facilitate plate motion. Seafloor generated along the Juan de Fuca Ridge
moves southeastward, past the Pacific plate. Eventually it subducts beneath the North American plate.
Thus, this transform fault connects a spreading center (divergent boundary) to a subduction zone
(convergent boundary). Also shown is the San Andreas Fault, a transform fault connecting a spreading
center located in the Gulf of California with the Mendocino Fault.
The Great Alpine Fault is a transform fault that runs through New Zealand’s South Island. The
northwestern part of the South Island sits on the Australian plate, whereas the rest of the island lies on
the Pacific plate. As with its sister fault,
California’s San Andreas, the rocks on one
side of this fault have moved several
hundred miles relative to the rocks on the
other side.

Most transform faults are located within

the ocean basins with a few cuts through
continental crust. Two examples are the
earthquake-prone San Andreas Fault of
California and New Zealand’s Alpine Fault.
Notice that the San Andreas Fault connects
a spreading center located in the Gulf of
California to the Cascadia subduction zone
and the Mendocino Fault. Along the San Andreas Fault, the Pacific plate is moving toward the northwest,
past the North American plate.
HOW DO PLATES AND PLATE BOUNDARIES CHANGE?
Plate motion results to the migration of boundaries and change in size and shape of plates. Plate
boundaries can also be created or destroyed in respond to changes in the forces acting on the
lithosphere.
The consequence of Pangea’s breakup was the creation of a “new” ocean basin: the Atlantic. The rifting
began between 200-190 Ma. By 130 Ma, the South Atlantic began to open near the tip of what is now
South Africa. By 50 Ma, Australia had separated from Antarctica, and the South Atlantic had become a
full-fledged ocean, and India began colliding with Asia and at the same time, the separation of Greenland
from Eurasia completed the breakup of the northern landmass. During 20 Ma, Aribia has rifted from
Africa to form the Red Sea, and Baja California has separated from Mexico to form the Gulf of California.
Meanwhile, the Panama Arc joined North America and South America to produce our globe’s familiar
modern appearance.
Approximately every 500 million years, continents join to form supercontinents.
The super-ocean of Pangea is Panthalassa – the modern descendant of the Pacific Ocean.

The world 50 Ma from now The world 250 Ma from now.

The Atlantic seafloor 250 Ma from now will eventually become old and dense enough to form subduction
zones around its margins. The closing of the Atlantic basin and the collision of the Americas with the
Eurasian-African landmass to form the supercontinent and Australia will collide with Southeast Asia.

TESTING THE PLATE TECTONICS MODEL

EVIDENCE: OCEAN DRILLING

The samples came from Deep Sea Drilling
Project 1966-1983 with the use of the ship
Glomar Challenger. The researchers used
microfossils found in the sediments on the
crust at each site. It was revealed that the
farther it is from the ridge crest, the older
and thicker it proceeds.

In 1983, a new ocean-drilling program with the goal to recover a complete oceanic crust section was
lunched by Joing Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling (JOIDES), now known as
International Ocean Discovery Program (OIDP).
EVIDENCE: MANTLE PLUMES AND HOT SPOTS

There are at least 129 volcanoes from the Hawaiian Islands to Midway Island and continue toward the
Aleutian trench called The Hawaiian Island-Emperor Seamount chain. This shows that volcanoes increase
in age with increasing distance from the Big Island of Hawaii.

It is hypothesized that a mantle plume is located beneath the island of Hawaii. As the hot, rocky plume
ascends through the mantle, the confining pressure drops, which triggers partial melting (also known as
Decompression melting). The surface manifestation of this activity is a hot spot. A hot-spot track was built
that indicates how much time has elapsed since it was situated over the mantle plume.

Mantle plume – cylindrical shaped upwelling of hot rock

Hot spot – an area of volcanism, high heat flow and crustal uplifting.
Olympus Mons resembles the Hawaiian volcanoes.

EVIDENCE: PALEOMAGNETISM
One of the most common minerals that exhibit magnetism is magnetite which is abundant in basaltic lava
flows and sometimes in sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. This is due to the fact that basaltic lavas
erupt at the surface at temperatures greater than 1000C, exceeding the Curie point. As the lava is still
melted, magnetite grains are still nonmagnetic but once it cools, these grains align in the direction of the
existing magnetic lines of force. Once the minerals solidify, the magnetism they possess usually remains
“frozen” in this position. Thus, they act like a compass needle because they “point” toward the position
of the magnetic poles at the time of their formation. Rocks that formed thousands or millions of years
ago and contain a “record” of the direction of the magnetic poles at the time of their formation are said
to possess paleomagnetism, or fossil magnetism.

Curie point – threshold temperature for magnetism.

Polar Wandering – the thought that
the magnetic north pole had migrated
or the poles had remained in place
and the continents had drifted
beneath them.

Apparent Polar Wandering – the

magnetic poles remained stationary;
their apparent movement is produced
by the drift of the seemingly fixed
continents.

For 300 Ma, North

America and Europe were
found to be similar in
direction but separated
by 5,000 km (A). 180 Ma,
they began to converge
on the present North
Pole. The explanation for
these curves is that North
America and Europe were
joined until the Mesozoic,
when the Atlantic began
to open.

Magnetic reversal – the

event when the magnetic north pole becomes the magnetic south pole and vice versa.

Normal polarity – rocks that exhibit the same magnetism as the present magnetic field.

Reverse polarity – rocks that exhibit the opposite magnetism as the present magnetic field.

MAGNETIC TIME SCALE

Brunhes normal chron 0 Ma
Matuyama reversed chron Jaramillo normal subchron 1 Ma
Olduval normal subchron 2 Ma
Gauss normal chron Mammoth reversed subchron 3 Ma
Gilbert reversed chron 4 Ma
Fred Vine and D.H. Matthews used the magnetometer to support the concept of seafloor spreading. The
stripes of high-intensity magnetism are regions where the paleomagnetism of the ocean crust exhibits
normal polarity and these rocks enhance Earth’s magnetic field. Consequently, the low-intensity stripes
exhibit reverse polarity and weakens the magnetic field.

These parallel stripes were

distributed as magma
solidifies at the crest of an
oceanic ridge; it is
magnetized with the polarity
of Earth’s magnetic field at
that time. Because of
seafloor spreading, this strip
of magnetized crust would
increase in width.

The oceanic crust

has been recording the
magnetic field of earth for
more than 200 Ma.

HOW IS PLATE MOTION MEASURED?

By knowing the age of a rock sample and its distance from the ridge axis where it was generated, an
average rate of plate motion can be calculated. It is also known that transform faults reveals the direction
of plate movement as seen in the offsets of the ridges. The figure below shows the age of the ocean floor
and how much of it was produced during that time.
To establish the direction of plate motion, geologists examine the long fracture zones that extend
thousands of kilometers from the ridge crest with the use of palaeomagnetism. Global Positioning System
(GPS) were used to understand how the plates are moving.

Fracture zones – are inactive extensions of transform faults and are therefore a record of past directions
of plate motion.
In the figure below, the red arrows show plate motion based on GPS data. Longer arrows
represent faster spreading rates. The small black arrows and labels show seafloor spreading velocities
based on paleomagnetic data.

WHAT DRIVES PLATE MOTIONS?

The ultimate driver of plate tectonics
is convection.
Convection – a type of heat transfer
that involves movement of a
substance; the hot mantle rocks are
rising and the cold dense oceanic
lithosphere are sinking.
Slab pull – the subduction of cold
dense slabs of oceanic lithosphere
that is a major driving force of plate
motion.
Ridge push – a gravity-driven
mechanism that is a result from the
elevated position of the oceanic ridge
which causes slabs of lithosphere to
‘slide’ down the flanks of the ridge.
Convective flow – the warm, buoyant mantle rocks rise while cool, dense lithospheric plates sink – is the
underlying driving force for plate movement. This is also a major mechanism in the mantle for
transporting heat away from Earth’s interior to the surface, where it eventually radiated into space.
Mantle convection and plate tectonics are part of the same system. Subducting oceanic plates drive the
cold downward-moving portion of the convective flow, while shallow upwelling of hot rocks along the
oceanic ridge and buoyant mantle plumes are the upward-flowing arms of the convective mechanism.

PROPOSED MODELS FOR CONVECTIVE FLOW:

1. Whole-Mantle Convection – also known as Plume Model, in which cold oceanic lithosphere sinks
to the boundary of core and mantle, and stirs the entire mantle. The downward flow of these
subducting slabs is balanced by buoyantly rising mantle plumes that transport hot mantle rock
toward the surface. In this model, it is said that heat mainly arise from Earth’s core while the
deep mantle provides a source for chemically distinct magmas. Some researchers argued that
the source of magma for hot-spot volcanism is the asthenosphere.

TWO KINDS OF PLUMES HAVE BEEN PROPOSED:

a. Narrow tube-like plumes – long, narrow tube-like plumes thought to originate from the
core-mantle boundary and produce hot-spot volcanism.
b. Giant upwellings – often referred as Mega-plumes. it is believed that these occur beneath
the Pacific basin and Southeastern Africa.

2. Layer Cake Model – in this model, the mantle resembles a ‘layer cake’. In this, the upper layer in
the model is littered with recycled oceanic lithosphere of various ages. Melting of these
fragments is thought to be the source of magma for some of the volcanism that occurs away
from plate boundaries, such as the hot-spot volcanism of Hawaii.

TWO ZONES OF CONVECTION:

a. Thin, dynamic layer in the upper mantle – active and provides material to support volcanism
at the surface
b. Thick, larger, sluggish layer in the lower mantle – sluggish and does not provide material to
support volcanism at the surface. Due to the slow convection, heat is being carried upward.