PLATE TECTONICS

·        The uppermost outer solid and rigid layer of the earth is called crust. Its thickness varies considerably.

·        It is as little as 5 km thick beneath the oceans at some places but under some mountain ranges it extends upto a depth of 70 km.

·        Below the crust denser rocks are found, known as mantle crust.

·        This upper part of mantle upto an average depth of 100 km from the surface is solid.

·        This solid mantle plus upper crust form a comparatively rigid block termed as lithosphere.

·        Mantle is partially molten between 100 to 250 km depth.

·        This zone is said to be asthenosphere, also known as Mohr discontinuity, a simplification of Mohorovicic, the name of the seismologist who discovered it.

·        The lithosphere is broken into several blocks.

·        These blocks are known as plates, which are moving over asthenosphere. There are seven major plates.

1. Eurasian plate,

2. African plate,

3. Indo-Australian plate,

4. Pacific plate,

 5. North American plate,

6. South American plate and

7. Antarctic plate.

Apart from these major plates minor plates are about 20 in number, a few important among them are :-

·        Arabian plate, Philippine plate, Cocos plate, Nazca plate, Caribbean plate, Scotia plate, etc.

·        The major and minor plates constitute the whole surface of the earth.

·        Plate tectonics is a method or way of understanding the land-water distribution of the earth.

·        Tectonics is a sort of movement of plates.

·        Through the movement, internal forces are explained which are responsible for the distribution of earth’s crust, formation of mountain chains and distribtion of earthquakes and volcanism.

Mechanism of plate Movement :

·        Arthur Holmes, a British geologist, in 1928 – 1929, proposed that convectional currents exist underneath the lithosphere.

·        The centre of convectional current is not exactly known, but it is believed that it has an average depth of about 100 to 250 km below the surface.

·        The inception of the current is initiated by heat generation due to radio-active minerals.

·        Due to integration and disintegration of atomic minerals heat is produced and hence the melting of surrounding rocks.

·        In this way currents start operating. These currents are classified into rising and falling with divergence and convergence activities, respectively.

·        With rising convectional current, transport of hot and viscous matter takes place upwardly.

·        After reaching about 100 kms below the surface that current gets diverged leading to split into the upper part.

·        The molten material penetrates into the split and thus creation of new surface and the draft of the mammoth plate in opposition direction.

·        It happens below the mid-oceanic ridge.

·        On the other hand two sets of diverging thermal convectional currents brings two plates together and it is called convergent boundary where subduction takes place.

·        Plates of lithosphere are constantly in motion because of convectional currents.

·        Their relative motion depends upon the force operating over them.

·        Boundaries are very distinct and easy to identify.

·        They are associated with newly formed mountain systems, oceanic ridges and trenches.

·        Plates are moving continuously and have relative direction of movement.

·        Based on the direction of movement three types of plate boundaries can, easily, be identified.

(i) Divergent boundary

(ii) Convergent boundary

(iii) Fracture or transform boundary fault.

·        The convectional current are caused due to radio-activity.

·        These currents get diverted on approaching the crust layer.

Divergent boundary :

·        Diverging currents produce tension at the contact-zone of crust leading to fracture.

·        Magamatic material penetrates into the fractroges and gets solidified.

·        This continuous process pushes the blocks in opposite direction and creates a new zone, known as “zone of construction”.

Convergent boundary:

·        At convergent boundary, two adjacent plates come further and further closer to each other and collide.

·        When both sides are of continental nature, a mountain formation is evident.

·        When one of the two is continental and the other maritime again mountain comes into being along the boundary.

·        In this case, continental plate overrides the maritime.

·        When both plates are of maritime, both of them break, subduct and penetrate below and, hence, trenches are formed.

·        Along this boundary earthquakes and volcanic activities are prominent.

·        In all these three situations, surface area is reduced, therefore, this is also known as “zone of destruction”.

Fracture or transform boundary fault :

·        Transform fault is the one when two adjacent plates slide past each other.

·        Direction of movement may be along or against but they move parallel to each other.

·        Therefore, neither there is any construction of fresh area nor it has any destruction. Hence, it is known as “zone of preservation”.

·        Plates are not a permanent features but they vary in size and shape. Plates can split or get welded with adjoining plate.

·        Almost all tectonic activities occur along the plate boundaries.

Plate Tectonics Vs Earthquakes and Volcanoes  :

·        The distribution of earthquakes and volcanoes over the globe clearly reveals that they are strongly associated with the boundaries of plates.

·        Plate boundaries are the zones where every sort of tectonic activity does take place.

·        The release of energy created because of the movement of plates is manifested in this zone in the form of earthquakes and volcanic eruption.