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Blaine Smit 72568141 April 7, 2017 Assignment 1.3- Definitions of “Tectonic” The objective of this assignment is to practice appropriate and effective written communication to an audience by providing three different types of definitions for a single word. An important part of writing is understanding who your audience is and being able to get across your ideas to that audience. The choice of definition type should depend both on your audience’s level of familiarity with the subject in question, as well as the required level of understanding the writer thinks they need to convey to the reader. Word: Tectonic Parenthetical Definition: Tectonic activity along the BC coast affects the internal structure of the earth, putting cities such as Vancouver at risk of natural hazards such as earthquakes. Sentence Definition: Tectonic refers to the movement, interaction, and deformation of rigid pieces of the Earth’s crust, both relative to each other and within the individual pieces. Expanded Definition: The word tectonic is a term that describes activity related to the internal movement and deformation of the earth’s crust, as well as the forces that act to cause these changes. The Earth consists of a solid, rigid upper layer of rock broken up into several plates that overlay the convecting, plastic lower mantle. This convection within the mantle causes the rigid plates to move around like slow moving ice on water. Tectonic activity results from the movement of these rigid plates relative to each other and the consequent forces that act on them, which cause deformation of the plates. The term tectonic can refer to both inter- and intra-plate processes. Plates can interact in several ways, either sliding past each other, crumpling together, or overriding one another, with one being forced down into the Earth. The crumpling together of the plates, or the sliding against each other, can produce earthquakes at depth, with tremors that travel up to the surface. The plates themselves can deform internally, by fracturing or folding of the rocks that make up the plate. The type of tectonic interaction that occurs is largely governed by characteristics of the rock that make up the plates, including composition, age, and internal heat. Different types of tectonic activity often produce characteristic styles of deformation of the Earth’s structure, and are responsible for many surface features seen today, such as the Rocky Mountains. More importantly, tectonic activity that involves collision or grinding together of plates can cause large scale earthquakes at a regional scale. Blaine Smit 72568141 April 7, 2017 Figure 1: Three different types of tectonic plate interaction. Plates can move apart, slide past eachother, or collide. Both convergent and transform boundaries can create the conditions necessary for earthquakes to occur. From Learning Geology: What do we Mean by Plate Tectonics? Works Cited Fossen, Haakon. Structural Geology. Cambridge, UK: University Printing House, 2015. Print. Learning Geology. “What do we Mean by Plate Tectonics?” 2017. Web. Feb. 2017 <http://geologylearn.blogspot.ca/2016/02/what-do-we-mean-by-plate-tectonics.html> National Geographic. “Plate Tectonics.” 2015. Web. Jan. 2017 <http://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/earth/the-dynamic-earth/plate-tectonics/>