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10.02.d

4 th Piece of Evidence: Magnetic Striping of Sea Floor. 10.02.d. Blackboard Exercise: Calculate Sea floor spreading rate…. 5 th Piece of Evidence: Sediment Thickness Pattern. Thickest along passive continental margins. Thinnest near mid-ocean ridges. Thick offshore of large rivers.

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10.02.d

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  1. 4th Piece of Evidence:Magnetic Striping of Sea Floor 10.02.d Blackboard Exercise: Calculate Sea floor spreading rate…

  2. 5th Piece of Evidence:Sediment Thickness Pattern Thickest along passive continental margins Thinnest near mid-ocean ridges Thick offshore of large rivers

  3. Correlation of sea floor depth and age Deepest seafloor is oldest Mid-ocean ridges less deep because young Depth (dark is deep) Age increases systematically out from ridge Age patterns truncated at trenches Age (orange is young)

  4. 6th Piece of Evidence:Sea floor heat flow pattern

  5. Earth’s Plates / Plate Tectonic Theory

  6. Current Plate Tectonic Theory • Unifying concept of geology • Evolution to biology • Relativity to physics "Chocolate covered cherry" analogy Rigid outer shell Solid core Moveable liquid between the two Earth's Structure • 6371 km mean diameter • Internal structure characteristics Composition and density Behavior (solid:liquid; weak:strong)

  7. Current Plate Tectonic Theory Tectonics (Greek tecton = builder) Movement of Lithospheric Plates • Large scale geologic processes (landforms, ocean basins, and mountains) • Driven by forces deep within the Earth Lithosphere: 12 major plates (boiled egg-shell mode) • Plate tectonics: processes related to creation, movement, and destruction of plates • Plates may include both continents and parts of ocean basins or ocean basins alone; may large (Pacific Plate) or small (Juan de Fuca Plate)

  8. How do we know Internal Structure? Primarily based on seismology (earthquakes and seismic waves) • Primary waves (compressional) propagate the fastest (6.5 km/sec in the crust) and pass through liquids and solids. • Secondary (shear) waves propagate through solid materials, but not through liquid; about 4 km/sec in crust • Focus--the site where energy is first released • Focus depth--distance below the surface • Link to seismic waves animation: • http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/content/visualizations/es1002/es1002page01.cfm?chapter_no=visualization

  9. Internal Structure Inner core (1,300 km dia.) • Mostly iron (90%); Some Ni, S, and O Outer core (2,000 km dia.) • Liquid similar in composition to inner core • Densities of inner and outer cores about same =10.7 g/cm3 Earth's average density; ~5.5 g/cm3 Mantle (3000 km dia.) • Average density=4.5 g/cm3 • Iron & magnesium silicates • The Mohorovicic discontinuity = Between the crust and lithosphere • Lithosphere • Made up of the rigid mantle and crust • Cool, strong, outermost layer of Earth; averages about 100 km thick • Thin at mid-oceanic ridges; 120 km under oceans • 40-400 km thick under continents • Asthenosphere • Hot, slowly flowing layer of relatively weak rock • Low seismic velocity zone

  10. Crust Top of the lithosphere Less dense than mantle Oceanic crust 6-7 km thick More dense than continental crust Less than 200,000 My years old Continental crust May be billions of years old Different geologic histories Average thickness about 35 km (70 km max.) Internal Structure Continued

  11. Processes Driving Plate Motion Convection cells to cycle materials on long residence times (500 my) Powered by heat from outer core and radioactivity.

  12. Internal Structure • Epicenter-- surface projection from center through the focus • Seismic waves can be reflected and refracted (Snell's law: n1sinq1 =n2sinq2) • P-waves show low velocity zone at core-mantle boundary; some reflected or refracted • S-waves dissipated at the core-mantle boundary suggesting a liquid outer core

  13. Plate Boundaries Divergent (spreading centers) • Mid-Oceanic ridges • Iceland • African Rift Valley Convergent (subduction) • Ocean-ocean (Japan and other Pacific trenches) • Ocean-continent (Andes Mts. in Latin America) • Continent-continent (Himalayan Mts. between India • and China) Transform (San Andreas fault) Triple junctions (Mendocino triple junction, Red Sea, and others) Show animation (Atwater) of plate boundary movement/migration

  14. Plate Boundaries

  15. Plate Boundaries in the field Fig.4.17b R. E. Wallace (228), U.S. Geological Survey

  16. Application of Plate Tectonics – Hawaiian Island Chain and Plate Motion History Fig.4.21 W. W. Norton

  17. Application of Plate Tectonics – Hawaiian Island Chain and Plate Motion History Fig.4.22a W. W. Norton

  18. Origin of Hawaiian Island Chain – Hotspot/Mantle Plume Fig.4.22b W. W. Norton

  19. Plate Tectonics and Environmental Geology Effects • Distribution of mineral resources • Earthquakes and volcanoes • Ocean currents and global climate

  20. Rock Cycle

  21. Rock Cycle

  22. Hydrologic Cycle

  23. Biogeochemical Cycle

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