Plate Tectonics is a very coherent theory

but cannot explain everything…

…most volcanic activity is related to subduction BUT

there are intriguing exception
Yellowstone
Yellowstone
volcanic
system
A series of
relatively young
craters
from west to east

Active system

source: USGS
Yellowstone Comparative size of several events

source: USGS
Hawaii islands
and Emperor
seamounts
Age data for the Hawaiian
hot spot track
(Doubrovine et al. 2012)

Red (towards the east) are the

only islands.

The rest are submerged

seamounts with the oldest
towards the northwest
 The Mantle Plumes hypothesis
(‘hot spots’)
A model to explain what Plate Tectonics
cannot
Map of the Hawaiian islands
Codes (Big Island volcanoes):
KI: Kilauea
ML: Mauna Loa
MK: Mauna Kea
H: Hualalai
KO: Kohala

Two trends (shown as lines).

Stars are submarine ridges and

volcanoes.

Activity is migrating SE (to Loihi)

(source: Ren et al. 2005)

Exceptions to
plate tectonics:
“hot spots”
(mantle plumes)
Spreading centers
vs. hot spots:
Spreading: generates
oceanic plates
Hot spots: heats the
overriding plate (stationary
relative to the plate)
 Mantle plumes seem to originate at the
core-mantle boundary
(thus, are ‘blind’ to plate tectonics)

Hand 2005 - DOI: 10.1126/science.349.6252.1032

Summary of the Mantle Plume hypothesis
Thermal disturbance
at the core-mantle
boundary generates The plume head reaches
The plume tail generates a chain of
a ‘plume’ or hotter the lithosphere: Large
volcanoes over the moving plate
(but solid) material volumes of magma form
Mantle plumes:
Why a hypothesis and on a theory?
A: Some robust evidence (seismic, isotopes) but no
consensus on fundamental aspects (e.g. how many
plumes exist today)

Some alternative explanation have been proposed

Very difficult to test and assess some of the concepts

BUT…
Why do Plates move?
HEAT release, mostly from radioactive decay
Heat loss from the interior of the
planet drives convection
SOLID Cooler, denser
Hot mantle crust sinks
hot
rises (subduction
water
rises (at spreading zones)
centers)
cooler
water
sinks Plate Plate

Convection is
maintained as
long as there
is energy input
Summary:

Heat loss from the interior of the planet drives convection.

However, the mechanism is more complex than the analogy
to a boiling pot.

If you are interested in the details pay attention to the

concepts of ridge push and slab pull in the video linked below.
However, the exact mechanism is beyond the scope of the
course. Exams will not go to this level of detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCIR0pZuqck
Heat Sources:
Some heat is residual heat from accretion
processes
(collision of planetesimals to form the Earth)
The rest is RADIOACTIVE heat due mostly to the
decay of three elements:
• potassium (K)
• thorium (Th)
• uranium (U)
 Consequences of the continuous
breakup and amalgamation of plates:
Supercontinents
Supercontinents:
over long periods of time continental masses are
grouped together

Kranendonk and Kirkland, 2016

The continuous break-up of one supercontinent and later

amalgamation to form another supercontinents is called the Wilson
Cycle
Examples
Reconstructing the history of plate motions:

1. Assembly and breakup of the

supercontinent Rodinia

2. Assembly and breakup of the

supercontinent Pangaea
Assembly and breakup of Rodinia
Grenville Orogeny
Laurentia margin

RODINIA
Gondwana
Assembly and breakup of Rodinia
 458 Ma

390 Ma

195 Ma

237 Ma
Pangea map (at 200 Ma) relative reconstruction in present South American coordinates.
Source: Evans (2013).
BREAKUP OF PANGAEA
Late Cretaceous-Early Tertiary

~ 65 million years
ago; current
features are already
recognizable

Current distribution
Future distribution based on current plate
motions

Examples:
The Mediterranean Sea is gone, now we have the
‘Mediterranean Mountains’. Much of the Pacific Ocean has
been consumed and the Atlantic Ocean is now larger. Not
shown: East African rift split Africa, etc.
What is important for GEOL1006-1021?
Do I need to memorize names of supercontinents
and time scales?
A: No, not for this course. The important aspects
are:
1. To know that Plate Tectonics have been operating for
billions of years
2. To recognize that the process is ongoing and plate
redistribution is still happening
3. To have a rough idea of the planet may look like in
about 50 million years
Up to here, Sep. 22nd, 2022
ACCRETION:

Growing
continents…
Continental collisions:
The Wilson Cycle
Different stages of the Wilson cycle

Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-2.5

 Important points regarding the
Wilson’s cycle:
The Earth is in constant evolution. Tectonic Plates are continuously drifting
apart, colliding, or moving along transform faults. New oceanic floor (and
oceanic crust) is formed at spreading centers (divergent boundaries) or
“destroyed” (subducted) at convergent boundaries. Volcanoes appear
along subduction zones and volcanic areas remain active as long as
subduction is active. Mountain ranges are formed (and are being eroded
at the same time) in convergent margins (by a combination of magmatic
activity and collision of tectonic plates).

SOME evidences of those processes are preserved in the GEOLOGICAL

RECORD. A significant aspect of geology (a.k.a. Earth sciences) is the
reconstruction of events based on the available geological record and
the search for more evidence to unravel the evolution of the Earth. To a
large extent solid-Earth sciences are “forensic” (in the sense that most of
the time we are trying to reconstruct what happened based on limited
evidence).
Other consequences of Plate
Tectonics:

Continents are a ‘mosaic’ of terranes

formed at different times and by
different processes.

Example: North America (see next

slide)
Geologic Map of North America

40
Geological map of the Sudbury Impact Structure and its
surroundings
Wilson Cycle: after Tuzo Wilson (1908-1993)
Canadian Geologist
Mt Tuzo,

Morraine Lake,
Canadian Rockies
 Tuzo Wilson
• Hot spots and transform faults were proposed by Tuzo
Wilson

• Tuzo's paper on the Hawaiian islands was rejected by a

leading earth-science journal before it was published in the
Canadian Journal of Physics

• “With the active support of Tuzo and his staff, Science North
was built in Sudbury”
Completed, Sep. 26th, 2022
Some interesting links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_4anRuGMe0&list=PLTBBygdCOWWdxBiWiSUs12bjnopJ3AGE4&index=5
&t=0s

(Good overview by the American Geosciences Institute. Many other interesting videos on that channel)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCIR0pZuqck
(very good summary of how the concept evolved. Includes some concepts we did not discuss in class)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmrXy65O6fY
Tuzo Wilson explaining transform faults
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhldiOaFqpE
Plate tectonic animation (pay attention, for example, at accretion on western Canada, at ~ 110 Ma)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDqskltCixA(early Earth and plate tectonics)
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/about/edu/dynamicplanet/nutshell.php
(plate tectonics in a nutshell)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1-cES1Ekto
(the Alfred Wegener song - click at your own risk…)
Some important points
Plates move against each other at different velocities. Some move “faster” that
others but overall, these velocities are very small to be appreciated in “historical”
time and can only be appreciated in “geological” time.

Some volcanic centres (e.g., Hawaii) are not related to plate boundaries and occur
within plates. They are linked to “mantle plumes” and are regions that release heat
as narrow points (hot spots), in contrast to large-scale convection cells, which
generate long mid-ocean ridges or continental rifts. Hot spots are relatively
stationary to the tectonic plates moving above them. Over time island chains form
and define the motion history of the plate above the hot-spot. The prevalent
hypothesis is that hot spots are caused by thermal anomalies at the core-mantle
boundary
Some important points
Plate tectonics is an example of interaction of different sub-systems. Internal heat
(from accretion and from radioactive decay of U, Th, and K) produces major-scale
convection, which brings new material to the surface of the Earth and recycles
older material back into the Earth’s mantle. This process has been operating
continuously for billions of years and is the main process to form continents.

The Geodynamo is another example of complex interactions: the rotation of the

outer core around the inner core creates the magnetic field around the Earth.
When new rocks are formed in spreading centers they record the magnetic field
at the time of crystallization. The magnetic field changes (reverses) periodically
and magnetic reversals have been used to reconstruct the evolution of the ocean
floor.
Some important points
Throughout Earth’s history the continuous formation of new oceanic crust in
spreading centers and destruction of oceanic crust in subduction zones has
resulted in the formation and fragmentation of large land masses called
“supercontinents” (e.g. Pangea, Gondwana, Rodinia, Nuna). The overall process is
called The Wilson Cycle, after Tuzo Wilson, who first proposed the concept.

The current configuration of continents is still changing and, if current plate

motions persists over several million of years, many changes could occur. For
example, Africa will collide with Europe and close the Mediterranean Sea; Eastern
Africa (Somalian Plate) will split from the rest of the continent; The Pacific Ocean
will become smaller; Australia will collide with, and accrete, New Guinea. Many
other major changes, which we cannot yet predict, are to be expected. All is part of
the continuous evolution of the planet.
Some important points
The Earth’s crust is composed of about a dozen rigid plates with defined
boundaries that are continuously moving relative to each other. Fourteen plates
account for 95% of the surface of the planet but the cut of what is a major plate is
somehow arbitrary (safe to say that it is between 7 and 14)
Plate tectonics is a very robust theory about the movement of these plates and the
forces acting between them.
Plate tectonics is powerful because it explains the distribution of volcanoes,
earthquakes, mountain chains, rock assemblages, and seafloor structures. It
predicts where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are expected to occur (but
cannot predict will enough accuracy when they may occur)
The forces that drive plate motions arise from the mantle convection system.
Plate Tectonics as example of the Scientific Method
Plate tectonics is a very good example of the scientific method. The initial
observations of Wegener in 1915 (fit of some continental margins, correlation of
rocks and fossils) lead to the hypothesis of continental drift. Lack of coherent
explanations of how continents could move meant that the hypothesis was
largely ignored and discarded.

The discovery of mid-ocean ridges, demonstration of sea-floor spreading (age

and magnetism), the location of Earthquakes, etc. gradually provided evidence
to the initial hypothesis. With multiple independent lines of evidence (GPS,
seismic tomography, etc.) Plate tectonics is now considered a very robust theory.
There are many aspects that remain insufficiently constrained, but no other
models have the prediction power or Plate Tectonics or can explain all
observations coherently and better.
Important points
There are three types of plate boundaries:

Convergent: where plates move towards each other. Plates either collide to
form mountain chains such as the Himalayas (continent-continent convergence)
or one plate subducts beneath the other and form volcanic chains as in
Indonesia and Japan (ocean-ocean convergence) of as in South-America
(ocean-continent convergence).

Divergent: where plates move apart, and new crust is created (as in the mid-
Atlantic ocean ridge)

Transform-faults: where plates slide past each other without colliding or

forming new crust (e.g. San Andreas fault