Announcement about Exam 2:

learn the relationships that exist among the different events

in terms of relative magnitudes,
relative intensities,
relative recurrence intervals,
relative death tolls, and,
even more importantly, respective tectonic settings and how people died
in each case study.

You should make qualitative assessments about these.

For instance:
many more people died in Haiti than
Northridge. Why? Isnt Los Angeles much more populated?
For instance:
Many fewer people died in Chile than
Haiti. Why? Wasnt the Chile quake much larger?
What's the tectonic
regime of the Northridge quake?
How do people die in
China?

You will be asked:

Each of the case studies covered.
Youll be asked to apply the knowledge that you gathered from studying
the basics of Tectonics and Earthquake Geology into new situations.\
Fully understand the concepts in order to be able to identify what a
question is asking.
Note that YouTube video clips are also important. Dont skip these videos

Misunderstanding about the relationships among plate

boundaries, stresses, faults, and seismic waves.
This is what the quiz posted - Quiz 3 is all about (last before your test).
Only open this quiz when you fully understand these relationships. I urge you to contact
me (Disc Board; Collaborate; office hours) if you find this confusing. Once you
have it sorted out, youll find this stuff easy.

Chapter 2
Four primary energy sources that make earth an active body:
-The impact of extraterrestrial bodies
-Gravity

-Earth internal heath

-The sun
Engery flows from earths interior, the Sun, gravity and impacts with comets and
asteroids.
The flow of internal energy has produced:
-Our continents
-Oceans
-Atmosphere
-Continents drifting and colliding is what causes mountains and elevated plateaus.
Sun and Gravity
-The constant pull of gravity helps bring atmospheric moisture down as snow and rain.
- Also bring down hailstorms, lightning, tornadoes, and hurricanes.
- Power the agents of erosion-glaciers, streams, underground waters, winds, ocean waves and
currents.
Sun
- of the suns energy that reaches the Earth evaporates and lifts water into the
atmosphere.
- 23% of the incoming solar radiation is used to evaporate and lift water into the
atmosphere to begin the hydrologic cycle.
- External energy from the sun is stored inside plants and can be released by fire.
- Two main constituents of the sun are the lightweight elements:
- Hydrogen
- Helium

Lecture 2.1 - Plate Tectonics Introduction

Plate Tectonics are a fundamental concept.
1. They are the reasons for natural disasters: earthquakes,
tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and landslides

EVIDENCE
1. Review Q: What is the lithosphere?
1. A: All of the crust and part of the upper
mantle.

2. It moves over the asthenosphere, in plates

2. Supercontinent Pangaea (~200 million years ago)
1. Wegener's theory of Continental Drift
1. The continents come together
and move apart over time.
2. Pangaea is the last time the continents have
been together; it is NOT the beginning of the earth/the only time
that the continents were together.
3. CONTINENTAL FIT: the continent fit exactly at
the edges (shelf) with one another. Just like they were pieces of
a jigsaw puzzle.
1. The Atlantic ocean has been
getting wider
4. FOSSILS
1. Rocks in the southern
hemisphere have similar fossils in continents that have
been together in the past.
1. Mesosaurus
5. ROCKS & MOUNTAINS
1. Appalachian mountains
correlate with Caledonian mountains in Northern Europe.
2. Climatic and glacial evidence
1. Climate is
controlled by latitude
2. Glacial striations:
huge ice sheets cover rocks and the ice melts,
rocks show how glaciers moved across the rocks
3. Parts of Africa,
South America, India, and Australia have glacial
deposits, even though they are in warmer areas of
the globe
3. Seafloor Spreading
1. In the middle of oceans are huge mountain
belts.
1. Volcanic mountain ridges all
made of basaltic rock

2. Then get recycled back into the

mantle - subduction
1. This causes
continental rifts
3. Ocean floors are younger than
continental land masses bc they are always getting
recycled
1. Furthest from the
ridge, older in age, symmetry on both sides of ridge
4. PLATE BOUNDARIES
1. Divergent: move apart
2. Convergent: come together, one plate goes
under the other - like subduction
3. Transform: move sideways
1. All 3 are places where the most
people are killed from natural disasters
4. CONVERGENT are the mother of all natural
disasters lol. They affect the most people and are the most
dangerous
5. Lithospheric plates move
6. Q: which plate do we live on?
1. A: pacific plate~ we are moving
north west!!!
5. FORCES FOR PLATE MOTION
1. Gravity
1. Slab pull: at subduction zones,
gravity pulls dense slab into the mantle
2. Ridge push: at mid ocean
ridges, gravity is pushing aside rocks on the
asthenosphere giving more space to spread ridges. It
helps slab pull
2. Mantle convection
1. Mass of earth is balanced
6. World Distribution of earthquakes
1. Most quakes are found at plate boundaries.
Big, strong ones. There are a few at mid-ocean ridges, but they
are not great hazards
1. Great belts of subduction zones
2. Also located along fault lines.
7. World Distribution of volcanoes
1. Also around the pacific rim. RING OF FIRE

POP QUIZ (sorry I don't have the map)

What plate boundary do you find at location A? and why?
It is a subduction zone. There are frequent
earthquakes, and there is a huge ocean basin.
What plate boundary do you find at location B? and why?

 It is a divergent boundary, it is a mid-ocean

ridge. There are not many earthquakes

Plate Tectonics Cause:2.1

-Earth quakes, tsunami, volcanoes, land slides.
Lithosphere:
Upper most part of earth
-All of the crust and part of the upper mantle.
-Broken up into plates and moves over asthenosphere
-Brittle when there is an earthquake.
Wegeners continental drift: 1915
Thinks all the continents were all together 200 mill years ago and called it
supercontinent pangea.
Continents will drift and come together then drift and come together again over and
over.
-

Climate is controlled by latitude.

- Convective motion (cells in mantel): hot, more buoyant , less dense rock,
extended rock rises and cold denser, older, more contracted rock, sinks.
- Subduction is driven by convective motion. This is also called sea floor
spreading. This is where ocean floors are manufactured and why ocean floor is so
much younger than land masses. They are always being renewed.
- Sea floor spreading:
*Mountain ridges in middle of the oceans. Breakup, rifting of continents.
*The youngest ocean floor corresponds to mid-ocean ridges. Progressively older
away from the ridges.

Plate Boundaries:
Divergent
Convergent Affects most people, are the most dangerous
Subductions-one plate does under another
- World distributions of earthquakes are along subductions
zones and some on ocean ridges.
Transform (arrows up and down opposite directions)
-

World Distribution of Volcanoes:

- 75% on belt of Pacific rim, also hot spots

Plate Boundaries
- Divergent boundaries
- 2 plates drift apart
A. Mid-Atlantic Ridge
B. Mid-Indian Ridge
C. East Pacific Ridge
Weird organist live in mid ocean ridges near hot vents. Found by small
submersibles.
-Convergent Boundary
-Mother of all natural disasters.

Lecture 2.2 - Plate Boundaries

Key to map:
Double lines = Divergent Boundary
Line with Triangles = Convergent boundary
Arrows pointing in opposite directions: transform
boundary
DIVERGENT BOUNDARIES
2 plates are rifting apart in opposite directions
It causes mid-ocean ridges, about 72k miles around the
globe
Mid-Atlantic, goes into Indian ocean
Becomes mid-Indian ridge goes
into the pacific
Becomes the east
pacific rise
Once they cool, the older floors sink back under and into
the mantle.
EX: Iceland
In the ocean ridges, there are HOT VENTS
Hydrothermal vents; in the center of the
ridge where magma is fueling
Submersibles help us find life forms down
there
Ex: EASTERN RIFT OF AFRICA
Goes into land, ripping the Arabian peninsula
from African continent.
CONVERGENT BOUNDARIES
A different type of hazard.
Continental plate moves over oceanic plate - subducting
because of density

 High mountains on land, volcanoes form, landslides

happen because land is elevated, etc
Also EARTHQUAKES. Happen when the rock gets
stuck/rumbles when subducting.
VOLCANOES: parallel lines of trenches
Ex: the cascade mountains. All active
volcanoes because Juan de Fuca plate is subducting under North
American plate
LANDSLIDES
TSUNAMIS
2 Belts of Convergence
PACIFIC RIM OF FIRE: subduction zones
ALPINE-HIMALAYAN BELT: Continental
collision
IMPORTANT EXAMPLES of SUBDUCTION ZONES: Andes
Mountains in South America, Indonesia, Japan, the Cascades,
CONTINENTAL COLLISIONS: when subduction zone pushed
2 continents together. Both go up into mountains, not volcanoes
because there is no opening to the mantle
IMPORTANT EXAMPLES: Himalayan
mountains - we find seashells on top!!!
TRANSFORM BOUNDARIES
Two plates sliding past each other in opposite directions
Also parts of ridges
No volcanism
IMPORTANT EXAMPLE: SAN ANDREAS FAULT