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Topic outline

 

  • Time: 15 hours
    Level: Intermediate

 
 

Introduction

  • Introduction Resource
  • In this unit, you will examine how the evidence for the movement of continents was gathered and how this movement relates to, and generates, geological features and phenomena such as ocean basins, mountain...
 

Preamble: the moving Earth

  • Preamble: the moving Earth Resource
  • The Earth's face is changing all the time, but at barely perceivable rates. It is now known that the Earth is a highly dynamic planet – far more so than the other terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus and...
 

1 From continental drift to plate tectonics

  • 1.1 Continental drift Resource
  • The remarkable notion that the continents have been constantly broken apart and reassembled throughout Earth's history is now widely accepted. The greatest revolution in 20th century understanding of how...
  • 1.2 Evidence for continental drift Resource
  • Ever since the first global maps were drawn following the great voyages of discovery of the 15th and 16th centuries, it has been realised that the coastline geography of the continents on either side of...
  • 1.3 Sea-floor spreading Resource
  • During and just after World War II, the technological improvement to submarines led to an improvement in underwater navigation and surveying that revealed many intriguing underwater features. The most...
 

2 The theory of plate tectonics

 

3 Plate tectonic motion

  • 3.1 Relative plate motions Resource
  • Plates move relative to one another and relative to a fixed reference frame, such as the rotational axis of the Earth. Plates also move across the curved surface of the Earth and so should not be considered...
  • 3.3 Hot-spot trails and true plate motions Resource
  • In addition to volcanism associated with constructive and destructive plate boundaries there is a third important component to global volcanism. This occurs in the interior of plates and is associated...
  • 3.4 Plate motion on a spherical Earth Resource
  • Earth's tectonic plates are continuously in motion with respect to each other, and together they form the closed surface of a sphere (i.e. the Earth's surface). Understanding the movement of plates, therefore,...
 

4 Plate driving forces

  • 4.1 Why do plates move? Resource
  • One of the key questions associated with plate tectonics is why plates move and what drives them. Plate tectonics is an expression of the thermal state of the Earth's interior and is the way that the Earth...
  • 4.2 Forces acting upon lithospheric plates Resource
  • Figure 28 provides a very simplified overview of the forces that are thought to affect the movement of lithospheric plates. The relative contribution of these forces to plate motion needs to be...
 

5 Implications of plate tectonics

  • 5.1 The Wilson cycle Resource
  • High-quality, palaeomagnetic data are now sufficiently abundant that it is possible to reconstruct the movement of the continents throughout the past 500–600 million years (i.e. the Phanerozoic) and, with...
  • 5.2 Plate tectonics and climate change Resource
  • This unit began by considering the evidence in the Earth's past for the existence of supercontinents and how evidence of past climates recorded in continental rocks can be used to reassemble ancient continental...
 

6 Summary

  • 6 Summary Resource
  • Plate tectonics is the grand, unifying theory of Earth sciences, combining the concepts of continental drift and sea-floor spreading into one holistic theory that explains many of the major structural...
 

Further reading

 

References and Acknowledgements

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