PLATE TECTONICS

Joseph Prosper

Monday 22nd October 2007

Antigua State College
 PLATE TECTONICS

•Theory of Plate Tectonics

•Location of the Caribbean plate
•Social displacement caused by
earthquakes and volcanoes
• The theory of plate tectonics advances the
idea that the earth’s outer crust is divided
up into a number of rigid, shifting plates of
varying size – six major ones which are of
continental proportions and a number of
others which are quite small – and that as
these plates slide pat one another, converge
or move apart, continental drift, mountains
are formed, and new crust comes into being.
• Plate margin is the edge of the plate. It is
at the plate margins that most seismic,
volcanic and tectonic activity is found.

• Plate boundary is the line between two

plates that touches each other. Plate
boundaries are marked by seismic activity
and volcanic activity.
• A plate is part of the earth’s surface that
behaves as a single rigid unit. Plates are
about 100-150 km. thick. They may be
made up of continental crust or oceanic
crust or both, on top of a layer of the
upper mantle. Plates move in relation to
the earth’s axis and to each other.
• There are seven large plates (African,
Eurasian, Indo Australian, Pacific, North
American, South American, and Antarctic
and several smaller ones (Nazca, Cocos,
Caribbean).
• Plate movements cause continents to
drift at about 2.5 km a year. They are
carried by convection currents in the
magma.
• Zone of Divergence (Pull – Apart Zone) –
a constructive margin, a region where two
plates are moving away form each other,
for example, the Mid Atlantic Ridge
• Zone of Convergence – (Subduction Zone)
- a region in which the lithospheric plates
is force down or subducted, into the
asthenosphere and mesophere. The
movement of the lithoshperic plates is
though to be the cause of the earthquakes
that occur in island arc regions. As it
moves down into the mantle, the plate is
heated and at a depth of between 100-300
km it is partly melted. At 700 km it breaks
up completely.
• Zone of Shearing (Transform fault) - It is a fault
along which two plates move past each other
without lithosphere being formed or destroyed. A
typical transform fault is a strike-slip fault that
cuts across a Mid Oceanic Ridge. There is
seismic activity at the transform fault between the
two points where it meet the Mid Oceanic Ridge.
There are continental mid oceanic ridge, for
example, San Andreas Fault in California and
the North Anatolian transform fault south of the
Black Sea,
• Three differing types of plate margin can be
distinguished:
1. Constructive or Ocean Ridge Margins.
These are the plate margins adjacent to the
great Mid Ocean Floor ridges with their
extensive rifts of fissures through which basalt
magma is poured out. As the plates move
apart and as the magma solidifies along their
margins they become enlarged. Examples
are the Mid Atlantic margins of the American
and African plates.
2. Destructive margins:
Just as new ocean floor is being created in
some places, in others, it is being destroyed.
When two plates are converging it is believed
that the leading edge of one plunges or
subducts beneath the other. Such destructive
boundaries between converging plates can be
divided into three types:
A. Ocean plate – Continental Plate Boundaries:

Here it is believed that the oceanic plate which is of

higher density is forced beneath the continental plate.
An example is where the Nazca (S.E. Pacific) plate is
moving eastwards and collides with the South
American plate. As the Nazca plate plunges at the
subduction zone, so the friction generated caused it to
fracture and heat up. The line of descent (the Benoiff
zone) is thus marked by the occurrence of
earthquakes and the generation of volcanic action so
common in the Andean region
B. Continental Plate – Continental Plate
Boundaries
In some cases two fragments of continental
crust may drift towards one another as the
ocean floor between them is consumed at the
subduction zone. This happens when the Indian
sub continental moves towards and collides with
the Eurasian plate. The accumulated sediments
on the continental margins are squeezed and
uplifted to form the Himalayan mountains.
 –C. Oceanic Plate – Oceanic Plate Boundaries.
Here there is convergence between two oceanic plates
and one is subducted beneath the other. Such a
boundary is marked at the surface by the formation of
ocean trenches and associated chain of volcanic islands
(island arcs). Examples are Tonga, the Aleutians, and
the Marianas, the West Indies
3. Neutral Margins
These are the margins where plates slide past
each other and where there is, as it were,
neutral activity: the plates neither gain nor
lose material. It is believed that the great San
Andreas fault, along the western margin of
North America, which has long been
recognised as a line of major seismic activity,
marks a sliding zone or line of plate contact.
 Distribution of Earthquakes
• Along the Pacific coast – e.g. Japan,
Hawaii, Mexico, Nicaragua, East Indies
• Within the West Indies e.g. The Greater
and Lesser Antilles.
• From the Mediterranean to East Africa.
E.g. Turkey, Iran, Italy
 Distribution of Volcanoes
• Close to continental coastlines e.g. along the
western coasts of the Americas
• Along the mid oceanic submarine ridges e.g. the
volcanoes of the mid Atlantic Ocean ridge.
• In regions of faulting and earthquake
disturbance e.g. the Middle East and the East
African Great Rift Valley
• In zones of recent mountain building e.g. the
Andes and the fold mountains of South east Asia
 Social displacement
• 1. Displacement of population
• 2. Destruction of crops
• 3. Destruction of livestock
• 4. Disruption to tourism
• 5. Change in weather patterns
• 6. Landslides
• 7. Environmental pollution
• 8. Serious and uncontrolled fires
• 9. Flooding
• 10. Disruption of communication
• 11.Destruction of settlements
• 12.