Dynamics of the Earth

4. Dynamics of the Earth

• Himalaya mountains, with an elevation of more than 8000 m
above the sea level, are composed of the rocks which were
formed at the deeper parts of an ocean floor
• Which processes were involved to elevate these rocks for about
10 km?
• African and South American continents have a separation of
approximately 5000 km, at the present time
• However, various evidences, such as paleontology, morphology
and paleomagnetism, prove that these two continents once
were together to form a single continent
• How come they moved apart from each other and formed an
ocean in-between
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• The developments in the sciences of oceanography
and geophysics, especially after World War II, have
provided valuable data concerning the ocean floors
and the interior of the Earth
• These new data involve strong evidences for the
dynamics of the Earth, formulated under the theory
of Plate Tectonics
• Tectonics; architecture, structure
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4.1. Plate Tectonics
• Lithosphere was defined as the outer layer which consists of the crust and
uppermost mantle
• The rigid layer is split into number of pieces, and each piece is called a plate
• The larger plates that make up the lithosphere are;
- Eurasia
- African
- North American
- South American
- Pacific
- Australian
- Antarctic
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• The examples of smaller plates or micro-plates are;
- Anatolian
- Arabian
- Nazca
- Philippine
• The thickness of these plates ranges from several
tens of kilometers in ocean floors to hundreds of
kilometers in continental interiors
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• All these rigid plates which ride on the partially
melted and mechanically weak layer;
asthenosphere, move in certain directions resulting
in three types of plate boundaries(sınırlar);
- Divergent
- Convergent
- Transform
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• Divergent plate boundary; in this type of plate
boundary, two plates move away from each other
forming a gap in-between
• Because of the thinning of the oceanic crust, the
asthenosphere moves upward, and the material
rising from the asthenosphere fills that gap
• This new material is added onto the both sides of
the diverging plates
• Therefore, the divergent plate boundary is the
place where a new oceanic crust is produced
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• Mid-oceanic ridge(sırt) is the most striking
morphological feature of divergent plate boundary
with a relief of 600 m or more and a width of many
hundreds to a few thousands kilometers
• The best example for the mid-oceanic ridge is the
Mid-Atlantic Ridge which is located within Atlantic
ocean and defines the divergent plate boundary of
African and Eurasian plates in the east, and North
and South American plates in the west
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• Convergent plate boundary; if two plate move
towards each other, they are called to have a
convergent plate boundary
• Along this type plate boundary, two plates override
each other and/or collide
• The convergence causes one of the plates to slide
down into the mantle
• Since the density of the oceanic crust is greater
than that of the continent, always the oceanic crust
slides down; this process is called subduction
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• The oceanic crust created in mid-oceanic ridge is
consumed in the subduction zone
• This production-consumption cycle, form divergent plate
to convergent plate boundary, covers a period of about
300-400 million years
• The subducted slab melts at a certain depth within the
mantle
• Some of this melt will be added to the mantle while
some others will rise through the continental crust and
form a volcanic island-arc chain parallel to the line of
subduction
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• The example of convergent type plate boundary is the
circum-Pacific subduction zone
• The Pacific plate is being consumed beneath American
plates in the east, and Eurasian plate in the west
• In the later stages of the subduction, after all the oceanic
crust is consumed, the continents begin to collide
• This collision results in the formation of a mountain belt
• Therefore each mountain range at the surface of the
Earth is an indication of the collision of the continents
occurred during geological times
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• Transform plate boundary; transform plate
boundary or transform fault(fay) is the one along
which two plates slip sideways relative to each
other
• It is mostly restricted to the oceanic areas and
constitutes the boundaries of micro-plates of
oceanic floor
• Neither production nor consumption of the plates
occurs along this type of boundary
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4.2. What drives plate motion?
• Researchers are in general agreement that some
type of convection—where hot mantle rocks rise
and cold, dense oceanic lithosphere sinks—is the
ultimate driver of plate tectonics
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• The simplest type of convection is analogous to heating
a pot of water on a stove
• Heating the base of a pot causes the water to become
less dense (more buoyant), causing it to rise in relatively
thin sheets or blobs that spread out at the surface
• As the surface layer cools, its density increases, and the
cooler water sinks back to the bottom of the pot, where
it is reheated until it achieves enough buoyancy to rise
again
• Mantle convection is similar to, but considerably more
complex than, the model just described
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• There is general agreement that subduction of cold,
dense slabs of oceanic lithosphere is a major
driving force of plate motion
• This phenomenon, called slab pull, occurs because
cold slabs of oceanic lithosphere are more dense
than the underlying warm asthenosphere and
hence “sink like a rock”
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• Although convection in the mantle has yet to be fully
understood, researchers generally agree on the following:
- Convective flow in the rocky 2900-kilometer-thick mantle
—in which warm, buoyant rock rises and cooler, denser
material sinks—is the underlying driving force for plate
movement
- Mantle convection and plate tectonics are part of the
same system
- Convective flow in the mantle is a major mechanism for
transporting heat away from Earth’s interior to the
surface, where it is eventually radiated into space
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• What is not known with certainty is the exact structure of
this convective flow
• Two models that have been proposed for plate–mantle
convection are presented:
- Whole-mantle convection; most researchers favor some
type of whole-mantle convection model, also called the
plume model, in which cold oceanic lithosphere sinks to
great depths and stirs the entire mantle
- Layer cake model; some researchers argue that the mantle
resembles a “layer cake” divided at a depth of perhaps
660 kilometers but no deeper than 1000 kilometers.
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4.3. Tectonic movements at the Earth’s surface
• The question «Since when the plates have been
moving?»
• According to the recent investigations the plate
tectonics has worked at least for the last 2.5 billion
years
• During this period, several oceans were opened and
closed, continents split and joined, and mountain
ranges formed
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• Several evidences suggest that all the continents
had once been joined together in a single great
super-continent known as Pangaea (all lands)
• The rest of Earth’s surface was covered by a single
ocean known as Panthalassa (all seas)
• Pangaea started to split into numerous sub-
continents before 200 million years ago
• These continents began to move in various
directions; some moved linearly while in some
others a rotation was involved
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• The important evidences supporting this breakup can be
summarized as follows:
- Morphology(biçim bilimi); Pangaea can be reconstructed
using the present shapes of the continents; especially the
coasts of South American, African, Indian and Antarctica
plates fit almost 100% with some rotation
- Fossils; certain fossils assemblages are found to be common
on the above mentioned continents; for some of these
fossils, it is impossible to travel to the opposite shore of the
ocean
- Paleomagnetism; newly formed magnetic minerals are
oriented according to the present magnetic north
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• All the continents, at present, move at a certain
rate of slip
• The average slip rate is about 1-2 cm/year
• The maximum rate through the history is reported
to be 18 cm/year
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• The most striking relative movements of today’s
continents are as follows;
- The African continent is under the process of
disintegration; in the future, this continent will be
split into several sub-continents
- The American continent moves away from the
Eurasian and African continents; Atlantic plate is
getting larger
- The American and Eurasian plates converge which
results in the consumption of the Pacific plate
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- The African and Eurasian plates are almost in the
last stage of their convergence; the Mediterranean
Sea will be closed in the near-future
- The Indian plate has completed its collision with the
Eurasian plate; high Himalaya mountains are the
products of this collision