Evidence for Continental Drift: Puzzle

Figure 1-8a Tectonic Plates

According to Wegner, the continents are sections of a past super

continent called Pangea, which broke apart and drifted to their
present locations.
 Evidence for Continental Drift: Fossils

Now-Extinct Life
Forms Preserved
in the Geologic
Record tell a story

Source: J. C. Carton/Carto/Bruce Coleman, Inc. New York

Evidence for Continental Drift: Rock Record

Source: William E. Ferguson

Pangaea 200 to 300 Millions of Years
Before the Present
 Sea-Floor Spreading:
3-2 Movement at ridges

• Axis of the oceanic ridge is offset by transform

(strike-slip) faults which produce lateral
displacement. Ridges and rifts indicate movement.

Segmented Ocean Ridge

 3-3 Global Plate Tectonics

Earth’s geomagnetic field is recorded as

new crust cools.
New crust.
Parallel bands of
crust with the
same magnetism
form along the
ridge.

Driving Mechanisms for Plate Motions

 Geologic Time

Modern humans
1_14
Extinction of dinosaurs
Flowering plants and grasses
First mammals
Earliest dinosaurs

Early reptiles

Primitive
fish
 3-2 Sea-Floor Spreading

• Rocks forming at the ridge crest record the

magnetism existing at the time they solidify.
• Sea floor increases in age and is more deeply
buried by sediment away from the ridge
because sediments have had a longer time to
collect.
• Rates of sea-floor spreading vary from 1 to 10
cm per year for each side of the ridge and can
be determined by dating magnetic anomaly
stripes of the sea floor and measuring their
distance from the ridge crest.
• Continents are moved by the expanding sea
floor.
 3-3 Global Plate Tectonics

Because Earth’s size has not changed,

expansion of the crust in one area
requires destruction of the crust
elsewhere.
• Currently, the Pacific Ocean basin is
shrinking as other ocean basins expand.
• Seismicity is the frequency, magnitude and
distribution of earthquakes. Earthquakes
are concentrated along oceanic ridges,
transform faults, trenches and island arcs.
• Tectonism refers to the deformation of
Earth’s crust.
 3-3 Global Plate Tectonics

• Destruction of sea floor occurs in

subduction zones.
• Subduction is the process at a trench
whereby one part of the sea floor plunges
below another and down into the
asthenosphere.
 3-3 Global Plate Tectonics

• Benioff Zone is an area of increasingly deeper

seismic activity, inclined from the trench
downward in the direction of the island arc.

South Figi Basin and Cross Section

Showing Benioff Zone
 3-3 Global Plate Tectonics

Earth’s surface is composed of a series

of lithospheric plates. Plate edges
extend through the lithosphere and are
defined by seismicity.
• Plate edges are trenches, oceanic ridges
and transform faults.
• Seismicity and volcanism are concentrated
along plate boundaries.
 3-3 Global Plate Tectonics

Movement of plates is caused by thermal

convection of the rocks of the
asthenosphere which drag along the
overlying lithospheric plates.

Driving Mechanisms for Plate Motions

Plate Rifting (cont'd): Earths Internal Heat Engine
Figure 1-10
Mid-Ocean
Ridge
 3-3 Global Plate Tectonics

• Mantle plumes originate deep within the

asthenosphere as molten rock which rises
and melts through the lithospheric plate
forming a large volcanic mass at a “hot
spot”.

Mantle Plume
 3-3 Global Plate Tectonics

Wilson Cycle refers to the sequence of

events leading to the formation,
expansion, contracting and eventual
elimination of ocean basins.
• Stages in basin history are:
– Embryonic - rift valley forms as continent begins to
split.
– Juvenile - sea floor basalts begin forming as
continental fragments diverge.
– Mature - broad ocean basin widens, trenches
eventually develop and subduction begins.
– Declining - subduction eliminates much of sea floor
and oceanic ridge.
– Terminal - last of the sea floor is eliminated and
continents collide forming a continental mountain
chain.
The Wilson Cycle
Video on evolution of ocean basin