Chapter 7: Plate Tectonics

Due ____________

1) Who proposed the theory of continental drift?

Alfred Wegener
When did he/she propose this theory?
Proposed Continental Drift Theory (~1912)
2) What were 3 or 4 of his lines of evidence for this theory? Describe each.
1. Continents seem to fit like a jig-saw puzzle
2. Animal and plant fossils are similar across continents
3. Rocks are similar across continents
4. Coal deposits found in the Antarctic
5. Age of Mt. ranges match across continents
3) What did Wegener think was the driving mechanism behind continental drift?
Alfred Wegner was a scientist who proposed that Continental Drift Theory in the early twentieth
century. Wegner noticed that Greenland moved a mile away according to 19 th century longitude.
A lot of people disagreed with Wegners opinion. After Wegner died Arthur Holmes found that
the thermal convection in the earths layer can indeed cause landmasses to move which proved
that Wegner was correct. Wegners drift statement also gave clarification on the creation of
mountains
In the last part of the 20 th century the geographic (quantitative) evidence to support the theory
of continental drift is that Alfred Wegner wrote a book explaining the continental drift
philosophy. Initially other experts disagreed with the philosophy but now they have discovered
that landmasses rest on massive slabs of pillar baptized tectonic plates
4) What do scientists now believe is the mechanism behind plate motion?
Plate Motion The main objection of Wegener's continental drift hypothesis was he could not
explain why or how continents move. Scientists now understand that continents move because
the asthenosphere moves beneath the lithosphere.
So what exactly is the evidence for the mechanism what exactly keeps this engine called the
Earth running? In fact, the mechanisms by which plate tectonics work are actually poorly
understood and research is ongoing. Measurements of temperature from bore-holes and mines
tell us that the temperature of the earth increases with depth by an average of two or three
degrees Celsius per 100 meters. The source of this heat is radioactivity in the planets core.
5) In addition to Wegeners evidence, give 6 7 more lines of evidence for plate tectonics that
have been discovered since the 1950s. Do YOU know how each of these supports plate
tectonics? Yes, this is a long answer you might spend a page or more on this question alone.
Continental drift was hotly debated off and on for decades following Wegener's death before it
was largely dismissed as being eccentric, preposterous, and improbable. However, beginning in
the 1950s, a wealth of new evidence emerged to revive the debate about Wegener's provocative

ideas and their implications. In particular, four major scientific developments spurred the
formulation of the plate-tectonics theory: (1) demonstration of the ruggedness and youth of the
ocean floor; (2) confirmation of repeated reversals of the Earth magnetic field in the geologic
past; (3) emergence of the seafloor-spreading hypothesis and associated recycling of oceanic
crust; and (4) precise documentation that the world's earthquake and volcanic activity is
concentrated along oceanic trenches and submarine mountain ranges.
However,
1) All the evidence from Continental Drift was still valid
2) Solved Polar Wander problem
3) Sea floor spreading symmetric on both sides of a ridge
4) Subducted dense ocean crust back into the mantle (so that is why there is no old ocean crust)
5) Hot spots tracks (burn a hole through the plate)
6) Witness volcanism at the sea floor spreading ridges
7) Measure plate movements with GPS
Ocean floor mapping
About two thirds of the Earth's surface lies beneath the oceans. Before the 19th century, the
depths of the open ocean were largely a matter of speculation, and most people thought that the
ocean floor was relatively flat and featureless. However, as early as the 16th century, a few
intrepid navigators, by taking soundings with hand lines, found that the open ocean can differ
considerably in depth, showing that the ocean floor was not as flat as generally believed. Oceanic
exploration during the next centuries dramatically improved our knowledge of the ocean floor.
We now know that most of the geologic processes occurring on land are linked, directly or
indirectly, to the dynamics of the ocean floor.
Magnetic striping and polar reversals
Beginning in the 1950s, scientists, using magnetic instruments (magnetometers) adapted from
airborne devices developed during World War II to detect submarines, began recognizing odd
magnetic variations across the ocean floor. This finding, though unexpected, was not entirely
surprising because it was known that basalt -- the iron-rich, volcanic rock making up the ocean
floor-- contains a strongly magnetic mineral (magnetite) and can locally distort compass
readings. This distortion was recognized by Icelandic mariners as early as the late 18th century.
More important, because the presence of magnetite gives the basalt measurable magnetic
properties, these newly discovered magnetic variations provided another means to study the deep
ocean floor.
Seafloor spreading and recycling of oceanic crust
The discovery of magnetic striping naturally prompted more questions: How does the magnetic
striping pattern form? And why are the stripes symmetrical around the crests of the mid-ocean
ridges? These questions could not be answered without also knowing the significance of these
ridges. In 1961, scientists began to theorize that mid-ocean ridges mark structurally weak zones
where the ocean floor was being ripped in two lengthwise along the ridge crest. New magma
from deep within the Earth rises easily through these weak zones and eventually erupts along the
crest of the ridges to create new oceanic crust. This process, later called seafloor spreading,
operating over many millions of years has built the 50,000 km-long system of mid-ocean ridges.
This hypothesis was supported by several lines of evidence: (1) at or near the crest of the ridge,
the rocks are very young, and they become progressively older away from the ridge crest; (2) the
youngest rocks at the ridge crest always have present-day (normal) polarity; and (3) stripes of
rock parallel to the ridge crest alternated in magnetic polarity (normal-reversed-normal, etc.),

suggesting that the Earth's magnetic field has flip-flopped many times. By explaining both the
zebralike magnetic striping and the construction of the mid-ocean ridge system, the seafloor
spreading hypothesis quickly gained converts and represented another major advance in the
development of the plate-tectonics theory. Furthermore, the oceanic crust now came to be
appreciated as a natural "tape recording" of the history of the reversals in the Earth's magnetic
field.
Additional evidence of seafloor spreading came from an unexpected source: petroleum
exploration. In the years following World War II, continental oil reserves were being depleted
rapidly and the search for offshore oil was on. To conduct offshore exploration, oil companies
built ships equipped with a special drilling rig and the capacity to carry many kilometers of drill
pipe. This basic idea later was adapted in constructing a research vessel, named the Glomar
Challenger, designed specifically for marine geology studies, including the collection of drillcore samples from the deep ocean floor. In 1968, the vessel embarked on a year-long scientific
expedition, criss-crossing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between South America and Africa and drilling
core samples at specific locations. When the ages of the samples were determined by
paleontologic and isotopic dating studies, they provided the clinching evidence that proved the
seafloor spreading hypothesis.
A profound consequence of seafloor spreading is that new crust was, and is now, being
continually created along the oceanic ridges. This idea found great favor with some scientists
who claimed that the shifting of the continents can be simply explained by a large increase in
size of the Earth since its formation. However, this so-called "expanding Earth" hypothesis was
unsatisfactory because its supporters could offer no convincing geologic mechanism to produce
such a huge, sudden expansion. Most geologists believe that the Earth has changed little, if at all,
in size since its formation 4.6 billion years ago, raising a key question: how can new crust be
continuously added along the oceanic ridges without increasing the size of the Earth?
This question particularly intrigued Harry H. Hess, a Princeton University geologist and a Naval
Reserve Rear Admiral, and Robert S. Dietz, a scientist with the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey
who first coined the term seafloor spreading. Dietz and Hess were among the small handful who
really understood the broad implications of sea floor spreading. If the Earth's crust was
expanding along the oceanic ridges, Hess reasoned, it must be shrinking elsewhere. He suggested
that new oceanic crust continuously spread away from the ridges in a conveyor belt-like motion.
Many millions of years later, the oceanic crust eventually descends into the oceanic trenches -very deep, narrow canyons along the rim of the Pacific Ocean basin. According to Hess, the
Atlantic Ocean was expanding while the Pacific Ocean was shrinking. As old oceanic crust was
consumed in the trenches, new magma rose and erupted along the spreading ridges to form new
crust. In effect, the ocean basins were perpetually being "recycled," with the creation of new
crust and the destruction of old oceanic lithosphere occurring simultaneously. Thus, Hess' ideas
neatly explained why the Earth does not get bigger with sea floor spreading, why there is so little
sediment accumulation on the ocean floor, and why oceanic rocks are much younger than
continental rocks.
Concentration of earthquakes
During the 20th century, improvements in seismic instrumentation and greater use of earthquakerecording instruments (seismographs) worldwide enabled scientists to learn that earthquakes tend
to be concentrated in certain areas, most notably along the oceanic trenches and spreading ridges.
By the late 1920s, seismologists were beginning to identify several prominent earthquake zones
parallel to the trenches that typically were inclined 40-60 from the horizontal and extended

several hundred kilometers into the Earth. These zones later became known as Wadati-Benioff
zones, or simply Benioff zones, in honor of the seismologists who first recognized them, Kiyoo
Wadati of Japan and Hugo Benioff of the United States. The study of global seismicity greatly
advanced in the 1960s with the establishment of the Worldwide Standardized Seismograph
Network (WWSSN) to monitor the compliance of the 1963 treaty banning above-ground testing
of nuclear weapons. The much-improved data from the WWSSN instruments allowed
seismologists to map precisely the zones of earthquake concentration worldwide.
6) What are the major divisions (layers) of the Earth? What are they composed of? (e.g. Ocean
crust is thin, dense, mafic while continental crust is thick but less dense and silicic). Provide a
detailed sketch.
Crust:
Rigid but various thicknesses
Mantle:
Lithosphere
rigid outer shell ~100 km thick Asthenosphere: gooey like toothpaste Mesosphere: lower mantle
Core:
Outer: known to be liquid
Inner: thought to be solid resulting from pressure

7) What is the Asthenosphere and why is it important to plate tectonics?

The asthenosphere is the layer of the Earth that lies below the lithosphere. It is a layer of solid
rock that has so much pressure and heat the rocks can flow like a liquid. The rocks are less dense
than the rocks in the lithosphere. And asthenosphere is gooey like toothpaste Mesosphere: lower
mantle
continental plates that ride on top of the plastic mantle (asthenosphere)
Plate tectonic theory arrives both ocean AND continental plates that ride on top of the
plastic mantle (asthenosphere).
The importance of asthenosphere is important because it makes up the many small and large
tectonics plates Tectonic plates fit in like a jigsaw puzzle
The layer of hotter and softer rock is the upper mantle and that is the asthenosphere
Moreover, The asthenosphere is now thought to play a critical role in the movement of plates
across the face of Earth's surface. According to plate tectonic theory, the lithosphere consists of a
relatively small number of very large slabs of rocky material. These plates tend to be about 60 mi

(100 km) thick and in most instances many thousands of miles wide. They are thought to be very
rigid themselves but capable of being moved on top of the asthenosphere. The collision of plates
with each other, their lateral sliding past each other, and their separation from each other are
thought to be responsible for major geologic features and events such as volcanoes, lava flows,
mountain building, and deep crustal faults and rifts.
In order for plate tectonic theory to make any sense, some mechanism must be available for
permitting the flow of plates. That mechanism is the semi-fluid character of the asthenosphere
itself. Some observers have described the asthenosphere as the 'lubricating oil' that permits the
movement of plates in the lithosphere. Others view the asthenosphere as the driving force or
means of conveyance for the plates.
8) Plates interact along interfaces called plate boundaries. Often there are faults here. List and
define the three types of plate boundaries and describe their motion. Where is each type of
boundary found? Give at least one example of each.
Divergent Boundaries
Upwelling - pushes plates apart
Creates new ocean seafloor at divergent boundaries (ie: Mid-Atlantic Ridge)
Primarily basalt (igneous rock)
If divergence continues, ocean basins will form Normal faults (extension recall Basin and
Range?)
Results: Crustal age differences
Convergent boundaries
Oceanic-Continental
Transform Boundaries
1) Creep plates freely (slowly!) slide past each other
2) Locked plates do not freely slide past each other
9) Describe the three separate types of convergent plate boundaries and give an example of
where in the world each one can be found.
Continental-Continental (Himalayas)
Oceanic-Continental
Oceanic-Oceanic (Aleutian Islands)
10) What drives plate tectonics? How does this work in a lava lamp or pot of boiling water?
Thermal convection is drives plate tectonics.
Thermal convection:
The movement of this heat or thermal convection is the most popular explanation for plate
tectonics. In this concept, hot magma moves upwards because it is less dense and thus lighter
than the surrounding fluid (this is why hot air balloons rise). It gradually cools as part of the
earths crust and falls at subduction zones because it denser and therefore heavier than the
surrounding fluid. It then heats up again completing the cycle, and therefore moving the plates
on the surface like a factory conveyor belt. The temperature of the lithosphere supports this
explanation: it is hotter around ridges and cooler around subduction zones. There are many

models for the exact nature of the convection currents inside the earth, some are more
complicated and involve many layers of convection currents.
The plate tectonics theory suggests that the outer shell of the Earth's surface is split into a few
plates that move along the mantle, forming a hard shell, with pressure from mid-ocean ridges and
subduction zones causing the shifting in the plates. Mid-ocean ridges are the gaps that lie
between the plates, much like the seams on a basketball. Magma oozes through these ridges,
creating new crust on the ocean floor and pushing the plates apart, while subduction zones sit at
the meeting point between plates. One slides under the other, pulling the crust down as it goes.
11) What is the Ring of Fire and where is it located (compare Figure 7.12 with Figure 8.28 and
Figure 9.32)?
The Ring of Fire is a long chain of volcanoes and other tectonically active structures that
surround the Pacific Ocean. The chain runs up along the western coast of South and North
America, crosses over the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, runs down the eastern coast of Asia past
New Zealand and into the northern coast of Antarctica. The Ring of Fire is one of the most
geologically active areas on Earth, and is a site for frequent earthquakes and powerful volcanic
eruptions.
Ring of Fire is a major area in the basin of the Pacific Ocean where a large number of
earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. In a 40,000 km (25,000 mi) horseshoe shape, it is
associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts
and/or plate movements.
12) What produces the Earths magnetic field? Why do we care?
Earths magnetic field is similar to that produced by a bar magnet, and is caused by our iron core
There are little rectangular grains of magnetite in many igneous rocks as these rocks cool, the
grains will align north and south
13) Discuss slab (or ridge) push vs. slab pull. Which do you think is predominant and why?
Ridge push: gravitational push, like a gigantic landslide away from the ridge crest toward the
subduction zone (the lithosphere slides on the asthenosphere)
Slab pull: results when the lithospheric plate moves farther from the ridge and cools, gradually
becoming denser than the asthenosphere beneath it.
Gravitational effects suggest that ridge push is of relatively low importance compared with slab
pull, in addition, it is observed that plates with large subducting slabs attatched and pulling on
them tend to move much more rapidly than those driven primarily by ridge push alone. Slab pull
may be more influential than ridge push in moving plates
14 (extra credit) look up a hot spot on the internet (try not to use Yellowstone or Hawaii).
Calculate the speed of the plate (in cm/year) and show all work. Cite your sources.
The majority of the research shows that the plates move at the average rate of between
approximately 0.60 cm/yr to 10 cm/yr. Some sources state that in the North Atlantic, the rate of
movement is only about 1 cm (about 0.4 in) per year, while in the Pacific it amounts to more than
4 cm (almost 2 in) annually, while others say that plates, in general, travel from 5 to 10 cm/yr

The Eurasian Plate is moving away from the North American Plate at a rate the is about 3cm per
year. That is about the same rate at which your fingernails will grow.
The distance from New York to London is in 3459 miles (5567 km). What will the distance be in
5 million years?.

The distance from New York to London in 5 million years will be 3552 miles (5717 km). So if
today it takes us 7 hours and 30 minutes to fly to London at a speed of 460 miles per hour, in 5
million years at the same rate of speed will take us close to 8 hours.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/geology/grocha/plates/platetec21.htm