PLATE TECTONICS THEORY

PLATE TECTONICS
• Tectonic is derived from the word “tekton” which means carpenter or builder
• Scientist use the term to describe the convection movement of the lithosphere
• Tectonic plates or lithospheric plates are massive, irregular slabs of solid rock that
envelope the surface of the earth
 CONTINENTAL DRIFT THEORY
• suggested by the German
meteorologist Alfred
Wegener in 1912
• the world was made up of
a single continent through
most of geologic time
• continent eventually
separated and drifted
apart, forming into the
seven continents we have
today
CONTINENTAL DRIFT THEORY
• When Pangaea broke up, the
northern continents of North
America and Eurasia became
separated from the southern
continents of Antarctica, India,
South America, Australia and
Africa. The large northern
continent is called Laurasia
and the southern continent is
called Gondwanaland.
 PLATE TECTONICS THEORY
• scientists believe that Earth's surface is
broken into a number of shifting slabs or
plates, which average about 50 miles in
thickness
• Most of the world's active volcanoes are
located along or near the boundaries
between shifting plates and are called
plate-boundary volcanoes
MAJOR TECTONIC PLATES MINOR TECTONIC PLATES
Pacific Plate Somali Plate Caroline Plate
North American Plate Nazca Plate Scotia Plate
Eurasian Plate Philippine Sea Plate Burma Plate
African Plate Arabian Plate New Hebrides Plate
Antarctic Plate Caribbean Plate Juan de Fuca Plate
Indo-Australian Plate Cocos Plate
South American Plate
 LITHOSPHERIC PLATES
CONTINENTAL PLATE
• lower density materials like
granite
• formed through volcanic
eruptions

OCEANIC PLATE
• heavier basalt and gabbro
rocks
• formed by magma when
volcanic eruption occurs
underwater
 PLATE TECTONICS THEORY
• Seafloor Spreading – seafloor
itself moves (and also carries the
continents with it) as it expands
from a central axis was proposed
by Harry Hess from Princeton
University in the 1960s.
• Seafloor spreading helps explain
continental drift in the theory of
plate tectonics
 PLATE TECTONICS THEORY

• According to the theory, the

seafloor was created at mid-ocean
ridges, spreading in both directions
from the ridge system.
• Magnetic surveys showed normal
and reversal polarity of the ocean
floor in bands paralleling the rift
 SLAB PULL THEORY
• The theory states that because
the oceanic plate is denser than
the hotter mantle beneath it,
this contrast in density causes
the plate to sink into the
mantle.
• The process of a tectonic plate
descending into the mantle is
termed subduction. Slab
pull occurs when an oceanic
plate subducts into the
underlying mantle.
PLATE BOUNDARIES
DIFFERENT PLATE BOUNDARIES
1) Convergent Boundary
• Oceanic-oceanic convergence
• Oceanic-continental convergence
• Continental-continental convergence
2) Divergent Boundary
3) Transform Fault Boundary
 CONVERGENT BOUNDARIES
• This type of plate is also called as the destructive plate
• It occurs when two plates are pushing toward each other
• The crust is destroyed and recycled back to the interior of
the earth
• Subduction zones are the regions where a portion of the
tectonic plates are diving beneath other plates into
Earth’s interior
 OCEANIC-OCEANIC CONVERGENCE
• Occurs when two oceanic plates
meet and one oceanic plate is
pushed underneath the other
• Due to extreme temperature, the
plate is heated and magma is
generated – building arcs of
volcanic islands
• An example is Aleutian Islands
off the coast of Alaska
Aleutian Islands, chain of small islands that separate the Bering Sea. The Aleutian Islands form a segment
of the circum-Pacific chain of volcanoes (often called the Ring of Fire) and represent a partially submerged
continuation of Alaska’s Aleutian Range.
CONTINENTAL-CONTINENTAL CONVERGENCE
• Occurs when two continents
meet head on
• This is different from oceanic-
oceanic convergence as
continental crust are too light
to slide down into the trench.
• The amazing Himalaya
Mountains are the result of this
type of convergent plate
boundary.
This immense mountain range began to form between 40 and 50 million years ago, when two large landmasses, India
and Eurasia, driven by plate movement, collided. Because both these continental landmasses have about the same
rock density, one plate could not be subducted under the other.
OCEANIC-CONTINENTAL CONVERGENCE
• Occurs when an oceanic plate
pushes into and moves
underneath a continental plate
• The continental plate that
overrides the oceanic plate lifts
up to create mountain ranges.
• Examples of ocean-continent
convergent boundaries are
subduction of the Nazca Plate
under South America (which has
created the Andes Mountains
and the Peru Trench).
The mountains have been formed as a result of the
convergence of the Nazca plate and the South American plate.
The trench (marking the boundary between the Nazca and
South American plates) to the West of the Andes mountains is
called the Peru-Chile Trench, and reaches an incredible depth
of 8066m under the sea level.
 DIVERGENT
BOUNDARIES
• Also known as the constructive boundary
• A zone where two lithospheric plates
move apart from one another
• Mid-oceanic ridge – which is a
characteristic of an oceanic-spreading
center that is responsible for seafloor
spreading
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge, a divergent or constructive plate boundary located along the floor of the
Atlantic Ocean.
 TRANSFORM BOUNDARIES
• Also known as the conservative boundary
• A zone between two plates that slide
horizontally past one another
• They are produced by shearing and are
closely related to the divergent plate
boundaries on the ocean floor
• When they occur on the seafloor – fracture
zones form; when on land – faults