3 Sep 15

Fall Semester
2015
Horst Rademacher
HH
A Primer on
Lect 3:
Plate Tectonics
Recap from last lecture I: What is an earthquake?
Common/laymen’s answer:
When the ground shakes where I am
Seismic waves

Scientific answer: Seismic source

When the ground breaks along a fault

Both answers are correct!

Two different aspects of a seismic event
Recap from last lecture II:

Earthquakes around the

world occur in a distinct pattern

Depth in km
Recap from last lecture III: Summary:

Earthquakes occur in a distinct pattern

Pattern is similar for EQ and Volcanoes

EQ occur along major ocean features

like ridges and trenches
EQ occur under some major mountain
ranges, like Himalaya, Alps and Andes
Recap from last lecture IV:

Wegener, 1912:
concept of
drifting continents

Alfred Wegener
1880 – 1930
German Meteorologist
and Polar Researcher
 Any
HH

questions?
Plate Tectonics
Why are Wegener’s ideas important?
At the last turn of the century,
nobody really understood
what EQ were and
how they worked
In folklore EQ were associated
with giant creatures that supported the Earth

Japan: catfish
China: frog
Philippines: snake
Native Americans: turtle
Plate Tectonics
…in ancient Greece

Destructive EQ in
Sparta 464 BCE

Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

Strong winds blew through caves inside the
Earth, creating “effects similar to those of the
wind in our bodies whose force when it is pent
up inside us can cause tremors and throbbings.”
Plate Tectonics
…in early Christian Europe
EQ were seen as the wrath of god.
Mechanism by the Catholic Church
to control the people.

Rimini, Italy, 1308

Rhodes
1481
 …that changed 1755
Plate Tectonics

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

gave first rational, enlightened
explanation of the catastrophic Lisbon EQ
on 1 Nov 1755
Plate Tectonics
…and then came 1906

Great San Francisco EQ devastated the city

 …a turning point for seismology
Plate Tectonics
(earthquake science)

The Lawson Report

• Cataloged descriptions of
earthquake effects
• Identified the San Andreas
Fault
• Maps of the fault location
and ground shaking
distribution
• Elastic rebound theory

Prof. Andrew Lawson

UC Berkeley
 Plate Tectonics

…but we still did

not know what causes
Earthquakes

that’s where Wegener’s

Continental Drift
comes into the picture
Plate Tectonics

Evidence for plate tectonics

shapes of
continents

fossils shared
between different
continents
Plate Tectonics

Evidence for plate tectonics

maps of the sea floor made using sonar (after WW I)

a ridge in the centers

of most oceans

surprisingly small
amount of sediment
on sea floor

East Pacific Rise

Plate Tectonics Ocean Ridges
 Plate Tectonics

Breakthrough in 1963:
Discovery of magnetic stripes
on the ocean floor

Periodic reversals of the Earth’s

Frederick Vine and Drummond Matthews
magnetic field are recorded as stripes
Cambridge University
Plate Tectonics
Plate Tectonics
Age of Ocean Crust vs.
Continental Crust
 Any
HH

questions?
Plate Tectonics …the mechanism
Plate Tectonics

The magnetic tape recorder:

Given the oceanic record we
can wind back the plates to
see how the plates have
been moving.

age of the ocean floor: red=young, green=old

We can reconstruct past plate motion

Pangaea supercontinent
Plate Tectonics Plate Reconstruction I

580 million years in 8 seconds

Plate Tectonics Plate Reconstruction II

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/eoc/teachers/t_tectonics/p_plate_reconstruction_blakey.html
 Plate Tectonics

Today we have
14 major plates:
North American
Eurasian
Pacific
Antarctic
South American
African
Australian

The plates are rigid.

They are moving,
hence they collide
Plate Tectonics

The Big Picture: How does it work?

Plate Tectonics
The tectonic action is
along the plate boundaries
Categories of
plate – plate
interactions
Divergent
• Established mid-ocean ridge
• New rift zone, new ocean

Transform
• Along mid-ocean ridges
• Across continents

Convergent
• Ocean – continent
• Ocean – ocean
• Continent – continent

Let’s look at them in more detail:

 Plate Tectonics

Divergent boundaries:

Mid-Atlantic
Ridge

East African Rift

and Red Sea
 Plate Tectonics Convergent boundaries = collision
Cars: Deformation, Metal folding, Explosive release of energy
Earth: The right conditions for Earthquakes and Volcanoes
 Three types of
Plate Tectonics
convergent plate boundaries:
oceanic-continental
Western South
America and the
Pacific
Northwest

oceanic-oceanic
Japan

The Himalaya

continental-continental
 Example:
Convergent
boundary
(continental-
continental)

India and Asia

Plate Tectonics Transform plate boundaries:
San Andreas Fault
The Mother of all Earthquake Faults
Plate Tectonics Hot Spots

Magmatic
Blow Torch
6000 miles, 70 million years
Plate Tectonics …the latest news
research published yesterday
Barbara Romanowicz Nature (doi:10.1038/nature14876)
Scott French
Berkeley Seismologic Lab

Further reading and for the video go to:

http://seismo.berkeley.edu/blog/seismoblog.php
 Any
HH

Questions?
 Tuesday:

Earthquake Faults

In preparation
read chapter 3,
pg 53-59, 73-77