Plate tectonics

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Plate Tectonics

Plate tectonics is a theory that has only been around for a couple of decades. The scientists have been busy the last decades with refining the theory. there is a lot of evidence that plate tectonics exist and that they will keep existing. The theory of plate tectonics is also referred to as " continental drift ". Continental drift is literally the drift that the continents did to form what they are now. The scientist that made significant contributions to the theory is Alfred Wegener. Alfred Wenger was a German climatologist and geophysicist. He studied the movement of the continents for quit some time. He came up with an expanded version of " the origin of continents and oceans" in 1912. He made hypothesis that the continents ones were Pangaea. He also said that all of this happened 200 million years ago.

There are different kinds of evidence to plate tectonics. One of them is fossil evidence. When Wegener was looking at the continents now he saw remarkable similarities in the coastlines. He then found an article about fossil evidence that there were the same kind of fossil in South America than in Africa. Through his research, he found that most paleontologists were in agreement that some type of land connection was needed to explain that in both continents there were the same kind of fossils. There are several examples of fossils that were the same but one classic example is The Mesosaurus. The Mesosaurus is a presumably aquatic, snaggle-toothed reptile whose fossil remains are known to be limited to eastern South America and southern Africa. If they would be able to swim well enough to cross a big body of water than the remains would be all over the world but since that was not the case, wegener said that south America and Africa must have been connected at one point.

There is also the evidence that there are rock type and structural similarities. The continental drift is can be presented by the rock types and structural similarities. If the theory of continental drift is true than there has to be similarities in the rocks found in particular regions. The rocks on one continent should match closely to the continent that it was adjacent to. Such evidence has been found in the form of several mountain belts that appear to terminate at one coastline only to reappear on a landmass across the ocean. For instance, the mountain belt that includes the Appalachians runs thru eastern America and then it stops on the coast of Newfoundland. The same type of mountain range is found in the British Isles and Scandinavia. When scientist drew this on a map they saw that the mountain range ran in a continuous belt.

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There is also Paleoclimatic evidence. Wegener was a climatologist by training so he was mainly interested in the evidence of paleoclimatic that there was a continental drift. For instance the r are glacial deposits indicate that near the end of the Paleozoic era, ice sheets covered extensive areas of the southern hemisphere. Layers of glacial till were found in southern Africa and south America, as well as in India and Australia. Below these beds of glacial debris lay striated and grooves bedrock. In some locations the striations and grooves indicated that ice had moved from what is now the sea onto land. Most of the land area containing ecidence of this late Paleozoic glaciation presently lies within 30 degrees of the equator.

Some of the most convincing evidence confirming the plate tectonics theory is the evidence of ocean drilling. From 1968 to 1983, the source of these important data was the deep sea drilling project. An international program sponsored by several major oceanographic institutions and the national science foundations. The primary goal of the drilling project was to find out the age of ocean basins and processes of ocean basin formation. Researchers felt that the predictions conning seafloor spreading could best be confirmed by the direct sampling of sediments from the floor of the deep-ocean basins. When they had all the data they found out that the youngest oceanic crust is to be found at the ridge crest and the oldest oceanic crust flanks the continental margins. The rate of sea-floor spreading determined from the ages of sediments was identical to the rate previously estimated from magnetic evidence. Subsequent drilling in the Pacific Ocean verified these findings. Since the ridge crest is younger than the areas farther from it, this pattern of sediment distribution is exactly what was predicted by the plate tectonics theory.

What are the reasons for the motions of the plates ?

There are four types of plate boundaries:

· Divergent boundaries: where new crust is made as the plates pull away from each other.

· Convergent boundaries: where crust is destroyed as one plate goes under another.

· Transform boundaries: where there is no crust made or destroyed as the plates slide horizontally past each other.

· Plate boundary zones: large belts in which boundaries are not well defined and the effects of plate interaction are unclear.

The most frequently asked question is: what drives the plates. Well the theory is that the plate-driving force is the slow movement of hot, softened mantle that lies below the rigid plates. The circular motion of the mantle carried the continents away from each other. The mantle (mobile rock) beneath the rigid plates is believed to be moving in a circular motion in the same way, as water is when it is boiled in a pot. This process is called convectional cell or convective flow. Convective flow is easy to observe when you are boiling water but is not easy to observe when you are looking at the earth. We know that the convective flow is much slower in the earth than it is in a pot of boiling water. We know that heat is needed to go through the process of convection. The heat from the earth comes from radioactive decay and residual heat.

Earthquakes

Earthquakes are caused because of plate tectonics. When what they call transforming boundaries occur the plates shift and make the crust of the earth shake. Transforming boundaries is when there is no crust gained or lost, it is when two plates are sliding towards each other and they slide over each other in a horizontal position. The most common cause of earthquakes is faulting. A fault is a break in the earth's crust along which movement occurs. The study of this movement is known as plate tectonics. Earthquakes are most likely to occur in what they call fault zones. Fault zones are places where to different boundaries meet each other.

There are three kinds of waves, they are P,S, and L waves. P(rimary) waves are waves that travel the fastest. They are push-pull waves. When the waves are traveling they are pushing different kinds of particles ahead thus they are compressing the particles. When this happens the rock particles than bounce back and when they hit the particle behind them. They keep doing this and after a while they are really dense. The other kind of wave is the S wave. The s waves don't travel through the earth as fast as p waves do. The S waves arrice at a gicen point after p waves do. They only travel through solids, not through liquids and gases. S waves speed up when they go through much more denser material. S waves cause rock particles to move from side to side. The particles move perpendicular of the waves. Then you also have L waves. L waves arrive after P and S waves do. They are the slowest moving waves. L waves always originate of the epicenter. Another name for L waves are surface waves because they travels along the surface of the earth, rather than down into the earth. Although they are the slowest moving plates they do the most damage.

Volcanoes

Volcanoes are mountains but they are very different from other mountains; they are not formed by folding and crumpling or by uplift and erosion. Instead, volcanoes are built by the buildup of their own eruptive products. The magma comes up towards the earth because of all the rupture of the plates. When plates rupture they build up great pressure and heat. When the heat gets to a certain temperature then the rock melts to form magma. Then the magma wants to get out the earth so it finds what they call Weak spots. Than it ruptures the crust and than it makes a volcano. Volcanoes are most likely to occur on plate boundaries because that is where the plates meet. There are two general types of volcanoes. There are Shield and Cinder cone volcanoes. A shield volcano is a large volcanic form that is a broad summit area, it also isn't very high and hit has sloping sides. A shield volcano is formed by slow, basaltic lava flows. Than you have cinder cone volcanoes. Cinder cone volcanoes are mounds that are formed by streaming gases that carry lava blobs and ribbons into the atmosphere to form lava fountains. The longer the eruption is the higher the volcano will get.

When a volcano erupts there're a lot of materials involved. The basic materials involved are molten rock (magma) and gas. The magma commonly contains some crystals, fragments of surrounding rocks and dissolved gases. It is primarily a liquid composed of: oxygen, silicon, Aluminum, iron, magnesium, calcium, sodium, potassium, titanium, and manganese. Magma also contains many other elements.

Four volcanic eruptions:

Tambora, Indonesia 1815

Kakatoa, Indonesia 1883

Mt. Katmai, Alaska 1912

Mt. St Helens 1980

Plate boundaries

When two continents meet head-on, neither is subducted because the continental rocks are relatively light. When they meat the crust tends to buckle and be pushed upward or sideways. Because of this most mountains are located on a plate boundaries. Sliding boundaries are boundaries that are sliding into other boundaries. No plate can slide without affecting another plate.

Earthquakes, volcanoes, mid-ocean ridges, and deep-sea trenches are all caused by plate tectonics. They all occur when different types of plates shift and when sliding boundaries meet. Please note that this sample paper on plate tectonics is for your review only. In order to eliminate any of the plagiarism issues, it is highly recommended that you do not use it for you own writing purposes. In case you experience difficulties with writing a well structured and accurately composed paper on plate tectonics, we are here to assist you. Your persuasive essay on plate tectonics will be written from scratch, so you do not have to worry about its originality.

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