2015 Revised history of Plate Tectonics
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Transcript 2015 Revised history of Plate Tectonics
Patterns of continents
Paleontology
Geology
Patterns of sea floor ages
Patterns of seafloor depth
Patterns of seafloor sediments
Patterns of magnetism
Patterns of volcanoes
Patterns of earthquakes
• 1620 – Sir Francis Bacon observed
similarities of coasts of Africa and
South America … “no mere
accidental occurrence.” A few years
later it was suggested that they were
once one, but had been separated
by the Flood.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/historical.html
1858 - Geographer Antonio
Snider-Pellegrini made these two
maps showing his version of how
the American and African
continents may once have fit
together, then later separated
• 1782 – Benjamin Franklin, based on
observed oyster shells on mountain
tops “The crust of the Earth must be
a shell floating on a fluid interior....
Thus the surface of the globe would
be capable of being broken and
distorted by the violent movements
of the fluids on which it rested.”
• 1799 – Alexander Von Humbolt,
German explorer and naturalist,
observed the similarities in the
geology and features of the west
coast of Africa and east coast of
South America (separated by a
valley filled by the flood)
• Current: Contracting Earth
• 1912: Continental Drift
• Observations
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Fit of Continents
Geology
Paleontology
Climate belts
• Pangea (“all lands”) 300 -200 Ma
• Breakup 180 Ma
Alfred Wegener
• Rigid bodies moving through
yielding seafloor
The same land plant and
animal fossils are found
on separate continents!
• 1926
• Based on
glossopteris
fern
No mechanism to make continental drift happen
• Arthur Holmes (Late 1920’s)
• Interior of Earth has sluggish
convection (transport of heat
from core); hot stuff rises,
cool stuff sinks
• New ocean crust injected
into ocean floor
But from
where?
• Mapping the seafloor
1947-1959
• Lockney Texas
• Rice University Trained
• UTMB - Division of Earth
and Planetary Sciences of
the Marine Biomedical
Institute
• Mapping the seafloor 1947-1959
• Surprises:
• Thin sediment
• Basalt crust – glasses
• Age less than 150 Ma
(hadn’t identified a pattern
yet)
• Ridges – later shown to
circle globe
• Valley within ridge (Tharp)
• Earthquakes along ridges
• High heat flow (Bullard)
• 1962 – startling new
theory “History of the
Oceans”
• New ocean crust at midocean ridges
• Ocean crust dragged
down at trenches;
mountains form here
• Continental crust too
light; remains at surface
• Earthquakes occur where
crust descends
• When magma cools, takes on signature
of Earth’s prevailing magnetic field
• Three magnetic measurements can be
taken from rocks
• Inclination - ~ latitude ~distance to
the pole
• Declination - ~ direction to the pole
• Positive (normal) or negative
(reversed) - depending on what
Earth’s field is doing
• Add age = powerful tool
• Earth’s present magnetic field is called normal
• magnetic north near the north geographic pole
• magnetic south near the south geographic pole
• At various times in the past, Earth’s magnetic
field has completely reversed
• magnetic south near the north geographic pole
• magnetic north near the south geographic pole
• 171 times in last 76 million years … takes 5,000 to
10,000 per reversal. Lasts 10’s of thousands to
millions of years
Symmetric patterns of magnetism on
either side of mid-ocean ridge
Seafloor as a magnetic tape recorder
magnetic iron-bearing minerals align with
Earth’s magnetic field
Original copyrighted image removed; there is
an image available at
that may be copyrighted.
• Transform faults: opposite sense of movement than
expected.
• Proven correct (Sykes)
• Sealed theory of sea-floor spreading and plate tectonics
for most scientists
• 1960s-1970s
• The result of seawater percolating
down through fissures in the ocean
crust in the vicinity of spreading
centers or subduction zones
• The cold seawater is heated by hot
magma and reemerges to form the
vents. Seawater in hydrothermal
vents may reach temperatures of
over 340°C (700°F)
• Discovered in 1977 while exploring
an oceanic spreading ridge near
the Galapagos Islands
• The upper mechanical layer of Earth (lithosphere) is divided into rigid
plates that move away from, toward, and along each other
• Most deformation of Earth’s crust occurs at plate boundaries
• Pick an object and watch it …
• Better on glaciers than on slow moving
plates …
• Use magnetic reversals … long time
periods
• Date rocks across a mid-ocean ridge really
really carefully … tedious
Emperor
Seamount
Chain
Midway
Hawaiian
Ridge
Hawaii
• Stationary magma chambers under mobile
plates …