Tectonic processes Flashcards
(187 cards)
What is subduction?
- An oceanic plate gets pushed under a continental plate because it is more dense
What is slab pull?
- As rock descends and subducts, it pulls the rest of the plate down
What is ridge push?
- At sites where oceanic curst is created, the new crust formed pushes the existing crust away from the ridges.
- This has a smaller force than slab pull
What is the lithosphere?
- The rock layer (cool, rigid and brittle)
- The curst and upper mantle
- The base is 1300C
What is the asthenosphere?
- Below the lithosphere
- Hotter and weaker than the lithosphere
- Capable of plastic flow when stress is applied
What happens at a destructive plate boundary?
- An oceanic and continental plate are moving towards each other
- The oceanic plate subducts under the continental plate because it is less dense (slab pull)
- The oceanic plate starts to melt (due to friction and heat), and rise which causes magma to burst through the crust
-Gives explosive volcanoes and massive earthquakes
Examples of destructive plate boundaries.
- The Andes mountains in South America - The oceanic Nazca plate subducts under the continental South American plate
What happens at a collision plate boundary?
- Two continental plates meet, and fold upwards (because they are both the same density, so no subduction occurs)
-Only earthquakes occur here
Examples of collision plate boundaries.
- Mount Everest in the Himalayas - the Indian and Eurasian plates meet
What happens at a constructive plate boundary?
- Two plates move away from each other, leaving a space for magma to rise through
-Minor earthquakes and volcanoes can occur here
Examples of a constructive plate boundary.
- The mid Atlantic ridge - the North American and Eurasion plate are moving away from eachother
What happens at a conservative plate boundary?
- Two continental plates move past eachother in opposite directions, or in the same direction but at different speeds
-Only earthquakes happen here
Examples of conservative plate boundaries.
- San andreas fault in the US - Pacific and North American plates
What heats the magma to create convection currents?
- Heat is radiated outward from the inner core, due to radioactive decay that is happening here
What is a mantle plume?
- A column of magma
- High heat and low pressure causes the lithosphere to melt - magma rises through the cracks to the surface and erupts, forming a volcano
How do tectonic plates move?
- Mantle convection cells make contact with the base of the crust, and move the plates by frictional drag.
- Slab pull causes plates to move at subduction zones
- Mantle plumes push the crust upwards on a large scale
Where do most earthquakes happen?
- About 70% are found in the Pacific ring of fire
- Oceanic/continental fracture zones
- Intra plate earthqaukes
Where do intra plate earthquakes occur?
- They may happen along old fault lines in the middle of plates
Who came up with the theory of continental drift?
- Alfred Wegner
What was the fossil evidence for the theory of continental drift?
- Fossils of the same green plants have been found on almost all continents, suggesting that they all once had similar climates
-Glossopteris (plant)–> South America, Africa, India, Antarctica, Australia
What state is the mantle in?
- The mantle is semi plastic (plastic flow), so the material is solid, but it can flow like a liquid - this is what makes up convection currents
What was the glacial evidence for the theory of continental drift?
- The pattern glaciers made as they moved across the Earth’s surface doesn’t make sense, unless aranged how Wegner proposed
-Patterns show that glaciers formed in the oceans and moved onto the land, however we know this cannot be true
What was the rock evidence for the theory of continental drift?
- Mountain ranges in countries across different continents contain similar rock, and formed around the same time
-When using Wegner’s map, these ranges match up
What was the problem with Alfred Wegners thoery of continental drift?
- He could not explain what caused the continents to move