EAS 1600

Introduction to Environmental Sciences

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Class 16 - Plate Tectonics: Part 2
A more detailed look at plate tectonic-processes
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In the last lecture we looked at the types of Plate motion and the
development of Tectonics Theory. Today we will discuss:

 The forces that move the plates

 A comprehensive global view of Tectonics
 How our dynamic Earth works and how it has evolved.
ENERGETICS OF PLATE TECTONICS
Plates move an average of about 4 cm/yr.
(Not very fast, you say, but how far would that amount to after 1 million years? Compare that
distance to the circumference of the earth.)
What is the energy source that drives this motion?
< It comes from the earth’s interior - geothermal energy
< Amounts to about 0.1 W/m2
(How does this compare to solar input?)
< The source of this energy is:
1. Radioactive decay; and
2. Residual heat from Earth’s formation

1. Radioactive decay - arises from the spontaneous decomposition of unstable isotopes of

potassium, uranium, and thorium contained within the solid earth
> For example, 40K decays into 40Ar with a half-life of 1.25 billion years
When these elements decay they give off energy (like an atomic fission reaction).
> All radioactive elements in earth’s interior are decreasing in abundance as they decay.
Radioactive heat production has decreased by 1/5 over earth’s 4.6 billion year history
> This is not a permanent energy source ...
2. Residual Heat - related to heat produced in earth’s interior when
earth first accreted. (Pull of gravity on planetesmals and their collision)

Want to know more about this? Take EAS 1601.

The Heat within the interior can not build up indefinitely.
2nd Law of Thermodynamics dictates that there will be a tendency for this heat to
dissipate by traveling to the surface.
 This occurs by way of convection cells traveling through the mantle
 much like this our simple glass of water experiment
also like the atmosphere’s general circulation
These cells give rise to plate motion by way of mantle drag
Like wind gives rise to surface ocean circulation.

Once in motion other forces

(see figure 6-21 in textbook)
such as slab-pull keep plates in motion.
Thus far we have been learning about what happens when plates collide.
Now let’s we take a look at some of the major geological features that
are produced as a result of these collisions:
< Islands and Mountains Along Plate Boundaries;
< Islands Chains, Seamounts, and Hotspots;
< Cratons, Terranes, and Continents
I. Volcanoes
volcanic eruption brings magma to the surface to form “extrusive”
igneous rock
(Remember: non-volcanic magma forms “intrusive” or
“plutonic” igneous rock.)
Two types of classification schemes
 eruptive history
active – erupted in historical times
dormant – not active, but show no signs of erosion
extinct - highly eroded
topographic form
shield volcanoes
stratovolcanoes
cinder cones
basalt plateaus
For our purposes we are most interested in shield and
stratovolcanoes
Shield Volcano: Rounded, low profile
Formed from
successive lava
flows
 Typically of
basaltic composition
 basalts tend to be
quite fluid when
melted
not steep
usually NOT
explosive

Example: Hawaii
4 of the volcanoes that comprise the big
island of Hawaii. They are Mauna Kea
(MK), Mauna Loa (ML), Hualalai (H), and
Kohala (K). The photo was taken
from near the summit of East Maui volcano
(EM). These are the largest volcanoes on
Earth.
Statovolcanoes
Built by successive layers of lava of andesitic composition
 intermediate between basalt and granitic type of extrusive
rock.
this forms the wide base and
 solid debris called pyroclastic material
this forms the high peak
andesitic material not as fluid, so these type of volcanoes can
be more explosive
Examples of Stratovolcanoes

Family of Guatemalan stratovolcanoes. This

view is towards the East from the summit of
Santa Maria Volcano, and the volcanoes are
Acatenango (Ac), Fuego (F), Atitlan (At), Zunil
(Z), San Pedro (Sp), and Toliman (T).

Mount St. Helens:

Before and after
Taken from Conte, D.J., D.J. Thompson,
and L.L. Moses, Earth Science: An
Integrated Perspective, Second Edition,
Wm. C. Brown Publishers,
Dubuque, IA, , 432 pp, 1997
Arenal volcano, in Costa Rica
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/vwlessons/volcano_types
Example: the west margin of the South American continent, where the oceanic
Nazca Plate is pushed toward and beneath the continental portion of the South
American Plate.

Producing
the Peru-Chile trench and

> the Andes Mountains

Mt Redoubt Eruption
March 23 2009
For your information
Cinder Cones: small, mostly pyroclastic
material

calderas formed when summit collapses

deep depressions - much wider than
original crater
 remains of cinder cone
example: Crater Lake, formed ~
7000 ya
Which of these are associated with
convergent faults?
A. Shield volcanoes
B. Cinder cones
C. Stratovolcanoes
D. None of the above
Basalt Plateaus: flood plain of basaltic rock
Aside: Plutons and Batholiths
when intrusive rock is formed from magma, we call it a PLUTON

Plutons are given various

names depending upon their
position and orientation
< e.g., concordant (parallel to
surrounding rock layers) <
and, discordant (intruding
across rock layers) The
largest of the plutons are
called batholiths
The Erosion of Rocks Surrounding Batholoths can produce
spectacular geological features
Mountain ranges and islands are often produced from
volcanic activity. Given what you now know about the
composition of the magma for the various volcano types and
the composition of continental and oceanic crust:
Can you figure out what types of volcanoes are found
near what type of plate boundary and what type of
orographic feature is produced?
Mountain Ranges: Most mountain building (or orogeny) is currently
occurring along convergent plate boundaries.
Volcanic arcs along ocean-continent convergent plate boundaries
usually characterized by stratovocanoes.
Islands
We often find shield volcanoes along ocean-ocean convergent
plate boundaries
They produce island arcs
Islands always form on “continent-side” of boundary. Why?
 Islands
The island arcs of the Pacific Ocean

Aleutian Islands
Kuril What about
Islands Hawaiian Islands?
They lie 3200 miles
from a plate
boundary?These
islands are called
Island Chains.
They also are
usually produced
by shield volcanoes,
but the volcanoes
Mariana themselves are
Islands caused by a
different
phenomenon: A
HOTSPOT
Hotspots
Theory put forward by Tuzo & Wilson in 1963
Hypothesized that at specific places in the asthenosphere, a fountain of hot lava is
continuously flowing toward the surface.
The lava is lighter than surrounding rock so it erupts on seafloor producing a
“seamount”
Over a long period of time the seamount grows into an island volcano.
As the plate above the hotspot moves, it is eventually carries the hotspot, cutting it off
from the magma source, and volcanism at that location ceases.
As the one island volcano becomes extinct, another develops over the hotspot.
The repetition of this process over millions of years leaves trail of volcanic islands and
seamounts.
Because of erosion the older islands
become smaller.
When the islands sink below sea-level
they are called guyouts.
 “The long trail of the Hawaiian hotspot”
“Over the past 70 million years, the combined processes of magma formation, volcano
eruption and growth, and continued movement of the Pacific Plate over the
stationary Hawaiian "hot-spot" have left a long trail of volcanoes across the Pacific Ocean floor. The
Hawaiian Ridge-Emperor Seamounts chain extends some 6,000 km from the "Big Island" of Hawaii to the
Aleutian Trench off Alaska. The Hawaiian Islands themselves are a very small part of the chain and are the
youngest islands in the immense, mostly submarine mountain chain composed of more than 80 volcanoes.
The length of the Hawaiian Ridge segment alone, from the Big Island northwest to Midway Island, is about
equal to the distance from Washington, D.C. to Denver, Colorado (2,600 km). The amount of lava erupted
to form the Hawaiian-Emperor chain is calculated to be at least 750,000 cubic kilometers-more than enough
to blanket the entire State of California with a layer of lava roughly 1.5 km thick.”
Taken from USGS

Original schematic drawn by Wilson to illustrate hotspot

theory that explains existence of island chains like
Hawaiian islands

“ (The) ... bend in the chain indicates that the motion of the Pacific Plate abruptly changed about 43 million years
ago, as it took a more westerly turn from its earlier northrward direction.”
Molokini Crater off the Island of
Maui in the Hawaiian Islands.
This island is the remains of a
volcanic crater.
The Hotspots of the World

Note:
Some hotspots are located on plate
boundaries forming a “triple junction”
Others appear to be located along newly forming rift
zones This has been interpreted to indicate that hotspots can
sometimes lead to the formation of new rifting.
Ok, now we know how islands are formed, but
Where do the continents come from? How are they formed?
Continents have a stable interior of ancient rock (generally
billions of years old. This stable interior is known as a craton.
 these cratons formed from early island arcs colliding and
forming granitic continental nuclei
the portion of the craton that is not covered by sedimentary
deposits is known as the shield
(Question: If craton is original continent, how can portions
of it have sedimentary rock covering it?)
These nuclei are added to by crustal welding of other pieces of
crust called terranes.
The belt of deformation along the welding is called an oregen

SEE NEXT PAGE

Example:
The North
American craton
The Terrane on the west coast

So the picture of the

continents we get is a
land mass that on the
one hand is being
eroded away and on the
other hand is being
added to as plates
collide and combine…
We now have all the basic concepts of plate tectonics.
< Next time we will attempt to synthesize all of it into a
comprehensive global model of our dynamic Earth.
As the distance from a hotspot increases,
the elevation of seamounts above the
ocean floor will:

A. Increase
B. Decrease
C. Remain the Same
The Plates and Their Motion Today
By combining seismic, geologic, and other data, geophysicists have mapped the world’s
plates and their current direction and rate of motion.
Here are the so-called major plates:

Note the correspondence of the plate boundaries to regions of

major orographic and tectonic activity
By combining the information on plate boundaries with our knowledge of where the rifts
are located, and motion of lithosphere over hotpsots, we can deduce the directions the
plates are moving as well as their speed.
Question: There are some
strange looking
trajectories for some
of the plates. For
example, the eastern edge
of the North
American plate is moving
westward (away from the
Mid-Atlantic Ridge, but
the western edge of the
plate along the west coast
of US is moving
southward. How can that
be? Taken from Monroe, J.S. and R. Wicander, Physical Geology: Exploring the Earth , West Publishing, St. Paul,
MN, 639 pp, 1992

Answer: The arrows

represent relative motion. In fact, the sum of all arrows must equal 0.
Do you know why?
The sum of all arrows must equal 0, otherwise earth’s surface would shrink or expand.
Do a “plate cycle” and confirm that the surface is conserved.

SAP

For example, consider motion relative to the South American Plate (SAP)
Nazca Plate (NP) is moving 10.1 cm/yr to the east relative to SAP
 Pacific Plate (PP) is moving 17 cm/yr to west relative to NP, so 7 cm/yr west relative to SAP
Indian-Australian Plate (IAP) moving 7 cm/yr east relative to PP; 0 cm/yr east relative to SAP
African Plate (AP) is moving 4 cm/yr west relative to IAP; 4 cm/yr west relative to SAP
But on other side, AP is moving 4.1 cm/yr east relative to SAP
Sum total of velocity relative to SAP ~ about 0 cm/yr!
 why did we not get exactly 0 cm/yr?
 Plate Movement Summary

Plates Motion Sum

Nazca – S. American -10.1
Pacific – Nazca +17.2 +7.1
IndoAustralian - Pacific -7 +0.1
African – IndoAustralian +4 +4.1
African – S. American -4.1 0
 Fig. 1.A map of the region round the
Sumatra-Andaman Mw = 9.3
earthquake. The epicenter of the
earthquake is shown as a yellow star.
Locations of aftershocks reported in
National Earthquake Information
Center catalogs up to 20 January 2005
are shown as red dots. Locations of
GPS recording sites used in this study
are shown as white circles. Calculated
horizontal displacements are shown
with green and black arrows, scaled as
indicated. Measured horizontal
displacement at GPS sites SAMP and
NTUS is depicted with blue arrows.

S.A.KHAN AND ÓLAFUR GUDMUNDSSON Eos,Vol. 86, No. 9, 1

March 2005 Pp 89-94
There are also “microplates.”
Especially prominent along the west coast of the
US.
Now let’s look at:
PLATE MOTION OVER GEOLOGIC TIME
The continental view:
Yellow = North Amercia
Green = South America
Light blue= Africa 590 mya
Red= Eurasia 620 mya 560 mya
Dark blue = Australia
Fuchsia = Antarctica

520 mya 490 mya 450 mya

The Earth today 420 mya 330 mya

300 mya 270 mya 240 mya 210 mya

180 mya 150 mya 90 mya 30 mya

For an animated view of last 750 million years go to:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/geology/anim1.html
We find a dance of the continents:
continents coming together forming super-continents (Pangea)
continents breaking apart
new continental material forming

Some examples on the following pages…

The last supercontinent, Pangea,
existed close to:

A. 750 Million Years ago.

B. 500 Million Years ago.
C. 250 Million Years ago.
D. 150 Million Years ago.
E. 50 Million Years ago.
Late Cambrian: ~ 500 mya
Six major continents: Mostly in the tropical latitudes.
Baltica Russia west of Urals and northern Europe
China (China, Indonesia, Malay Peninsula)
Gondwana (Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Florida, India, Madagascar, Middle East,
southern Europe)
Kazakhstania
Laurentia (North America, Greenland)
Siberia (Russia east of Urals and Asia)
Silurian - 408 - 438 mya
Baltica and Laurentia collide forming Laurasia
 Devonian - 360 - 408 mya

> Continuous accretion of continental material in Laurasia forms

Euramerican continent
Carboniferous - 286 - 360 mya
Gondwana moves over South Pole, causing major glaciation which affects sea-levels
 Pangea begins its assemblage
Appalachian Mountains form

Kazhakstania and Siberia collide

Topography of Appalachian Mountains

Topography 260 mya

Present topography

Why the change?

Permian - 245 - 285 mya
Assemblage of Pangea complete
Triassic - 208 - 245 mya
Breakup of Pangea begins
 Gulf of Mexico forms
Cretaceous - 88 - 144 mya
Breakup of Pangea complete
Atlantic Ocean begins to form
India separates
Beginning of formation of western part of North America
Formation of Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, Alps, and Himalaya:
All formed as a result of continents consuming ocean crust and then converging
Current Orogeny found along:
Circum-Pacific Orogenic Belt
Alpine-Himalayan Belt

Taken from Monroe, J.S. and R. Wicander, Physical Geology: Exploring the Earth , West Publishing, St. Paul, MN, 639 pp, 1992
What Happened Before Pangea?
Between about 1100 and 750 million years ago there was
another supercontinent called Rodinia, it broke up ~ 650 MYA

http://www.scotese.com/precambr.htm
Global Geography Through Geologic Time
What will happen in the future? Scientists have made the
following predictions:

http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm
http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm
 Note that it the formation of a new supercontinent
Pangea Ultima is predicted.

http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm

So what’s all this continent assemblage and breakup about?

It’s actually part of a long-term cycle, the Wilson Cycle
The Wilson Cycle
What is the time scale for one of these cycles?
Continents move at a rate of about 4 cm/yr or 40 km/million years
 The circumference of the earth is = 2R ~ 2 x 3 x 6400 km
~ 40,000 km
So if two continents, initially in contact with each other, began moving in opposite
directions at the same speed,
 they would each need to travel ~20,000 km to collide with each other on the other
side of the earth
Given a speed of 40 km per million years, this would require 500 million years
This is the time scale that we observe for the cycle!

The forces that

drive this cycle are
described here.
Select the correct formula for the
period (Pw) of the Wilson Cycle:

( v = average Plate speed and R = Earth Radius)

A. Pw= R2/v
B. Pw= 4R2/v
C. Pw= 2R/v
D. Pw= R/v
The Role of Plate Tectonics and the Rock Cycle in Gaia.
Without the rock cycle, the mechanism that supports the living part of the earth would grind to
a halt. We will see an example of this when we examine the global C cycle.
Are there similar rock cycles on other planets?

A computer-generated image of the Aleutian Trench (in

violet); "warm" colors (yellow to red) indicate topographic
highs, and "cool" colors (green to blue) represent lower
elevations.

The topography of Artemis Corona, a trench-like feature on

Venus, shown at the same vertical and horizontal scale as
the Aleutian Trench.

(Imagery courtesy of David T. Sandwell, Scripps Institution

of Oceanography.)
http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/
The maintenance of plate tectonics requires an internal energy source. It is likely that smaller
bodies (e.g., Mars, Mercury, Moon) no longer generate enough energy to drive plate motion.
The same may NOT be true of Venus.

In fact: It has been hypothesized that Mars may have once had life but this life could not be
sustained because of a lack of tectonic activity. Without tectonic activity and a rock cycle, it is
argued, Mars lacked a mechanism to recycle the nutrients needed to sustain life.

Without tectonics to recycle chemicals CO2 from the atmosphere will end up as carbonate
sediments and photosynthesis on the surface and in the ocean will cease.

We will address this when we talk about the biosphere and biogeochemical cycles.
In the future is the Wilson Cycle
likely to :

A. Speed up
B. Slow down
C. Remain the Same