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Plate Tectonics
Earth Science Ch. 17
Plate tectonics

Earth’s crust is “broken” into many plates

There are 7 large plates

Plates move 1-10 cm per year

HowStuffWorks Videos "Continental Drift"
Plates
Possible evidence for
moving plates
 Shape
 Rock
of continents (“fit” together)
formations-p. 444
 Fossil
evidence: Fig. 17-2
– Similar fossils found on opposite sides of
oceans
 Ancient
climate evidence (coal on
antarctica, glacial deposits in africa)
Alfred Wegener
 German
scientist who proposed
“continental drift.”
 Named
his supercontinent
 Pangaea
Pangaea Fig. 17-1
How do the continents drift?
 http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hs
w/21687-plate-tectonics-volcanoesand-earthquakes-video.htm
 Sea-floor
spreading
Sonar Fig. 17-5
 Uses
echo-sounding to measure
depth of ocean floor
– Discovered underwater mtn chains
– And trenches
 Magnetometer:
magnetic fields
detects changes in
Ocean floor
Age of ocean sediments
Youngest rockscloser to ridges
 New crust forms at
ridges

Oldest are farther
away
 Crust is destroyed
at trenches

Plate tectonics Fig. 17-13
Plate boundaries
 Divergent:
move apart
 Convergent:
 Transform:
push together
slide past each other
Divergent (move apart)
Fig. 17-14
 Most
found on seafloor, but also the
East African Rift Valley
 Formation
 Atlantic
of new crust
Ocean grows about 1” a year
Convergent (come together)
Fig. 17-15a,b,c
3
types-depends on crust types
 Ocean-ocean
 Ocean-continental
 Continental-continental
Ocean-ocean Fig. 17-15a
 One
ocean plate subducts, or goes
underneath the other ocean plate
A
trench forms
 Crust
is destroyed here
Continent-ocean Fig. 17-15b
-more dense ocean plate sinks
Continental-continental
Fig. 17-15c
 Both
plates are too buoyant to sink
 Forms
 Ex.
a mtn range instead
Himalayas
Transform (slide past)
Fig. 17-17
 Crust
faults
 Most
 Most
is fractured, generally forms
occur in oceans
famous example is San Andreas
Fault in CA

San Francisco
earthquake 1989 Google Video
Possible causes of plate motions
 Mantle
 Push
 The
convection
and pull of the plates (gravity)
End!
References
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