DO NOW:

Use yesterdays notes to explain what

happens during sea-floor spreading.

Your explanation must include the

words:

Oceanic crust
Magma
Asthenosphere
Subduction
Continental crust.

Also explain what happens to the

age of the rocks as you move away
from the ridge.
Theory of Plate Tectonics
- The Lithosphere (crust and rigid mantle) is
broken up into 12 major sections called
Plates

- Lithospheric plates float or move around on

top of the asthenosphere.

- Convection in the asthenosphere causes the

plates to move
Aim:
A. What causes convection currents
in the mantle?
B. How do convection currents
explain the motion of lithospheric
plates?
DEMO:
Convection
4 Styrofoam cups
1 plastic bin
1 cup of hot water
1 bottle of red food
dye
2 blue ice cubes
Convection is a type of heat transfer that occurs only in a fluid. A fluid is a liquid or a gas. In a fluid the particles vibrate and
are able to flow past each other. As a fluid is heated the particles will gain more energy causing them to vibrate more.
Increased particle vibration causes the particles to move further away from each other. As the particles in the hotter fluid at
the bottom of the container are further apart, this area becomes less dense. Less dense fluids will rise. Cooler fluids will fall
to take the place of the hotter fluids. The hotter fluid that has risen up nearer to the surface starts to cool and the cooler fluid
that has fallen starts to heat up. The repetition of this cycle causes a convection current to form. Hotter less dense fluid rises
and cooler denser fluids falls to take its place.

Essential Questions:
1. What happens to the particles in a fluid as they are heated? How does adding heat to a fluid affect its density?
Particles spread out and so the fluid becomes less dense and rises.
2. Why do hotter fluids rise? Because they are less dense.
3. What happens to hot fluids as they near the surface? What happens to cold fluids as they sink?
Hot fluids cool down as they near the surface and get denser. Because they liquid is now dense it will sink back to
the bottom where it heats up again and rises, then cools down again and sinks creating a cycle.
4. What causes convection currents?
Differences in temperature and density.
How do convection currents
in the Asthenosphere
interact with the lithospheric
plates above?

Magma moves in the

Asthenosphere because of
convection currents. Plates
are on top of the magma.
Moving magma pushes the
plates around.
Ticket 1. . Which provides the best explanation of the mechanism that
causes these "plates" to move across the Earth's surface?
A) convection currents in the mantle
B) faulting of the lithosphere
C) the spin of the Earth on its axis
D) prevailing wind belts of the troposphere

2. Which diagram correctly indicates why convection currents

form in water when water is heated?
a. b. c.