Week 1 - The Plate Tectonic Paradigm

➔​ North America and Europe can be ‘fitted together’: 1600 (Francis Bacon)

◆​ During the 1570s (Age of discovery) Eurpoeans travelled to the americas after

discovering it to be rich in resources

●​ Started globalization

●​ This started the creation of the map to illustrate these newly discovered

lands

○​ Mercantilism

◆​ Doing something because of economic drive

◆​ People started looking at this map and realizing that the atlantic ocean precisely

fit with the western coast of europe and africa

●​ Francis Bacon, a naturalist and philosopher, attributed this to biblical

floods (noah’s flood)

○​ As a product of his time, bacon attributed most large

phenomenons to god/divine events; he was a divinist

○​ He came to this conclusion with inductive reasoning

◆​ Using specific observations to make generalizations

○​ This divine mindset is an example of catastrophism

◆​ Believing natural phenomena are explained by huge,

cataclysmic events

➔​ An ‘ancestral continent’: 1858 (Snider Pellegrini)

◆​ In 1858 a scientific proposal was made (antonio snider-pellegrini) that aimed to

show the two sides of the atlantic ocean were once connected

●​ Pellegrini used plant fossils to show this​

○​ He found two plant fossils from opposite sides of the oceans that

appeared identical

○​ Pellegrini contributed this to erosion

◆​ In the late 18 hundreds the general consensus was permanentism

 ●​ The belief that continents are fixed in position connected by land bridges

which sink to create oceans

○​ This made way for two sides of a debate: is the earth expanding or

contracting?

◆​ Expanding

●​ The belief that all the contents started near one

another/touching but began to separate with the

expansion of the earth

○​ This made room for oceans to develop in the

large cracks between continents

◆​ Contracting

●​ The belief that the formation of mountains and

continents as a result of the Earth shrinking and

cooling.

○​ Believed in fixed continents joined by

transient (temporary) landbridges

◆​ Scientists that believed this went to

the alps and notices mountain rocks

layered upon itself

●​ Much like when an old orange

has shrunk and becomes

bumpy

◆​ With the development of the science seismology and understanding how waves

moved through solid land scientists were able to use those waves look at/image

the interior of the earth

●​ This helped scientists realize there were different layers to the globe

○​ 3 layers - a crust (thin, hard), a mantle (thick, soft), and the core
 ○​ Andrija Mohorovicic realized there was a change in seismic wave

as you went from crust to mantle creating a boundary

◆​ Known as the Mohorovicic discontinuity

➔​ Mobilism - ‘Earth’s Plan’: 1910 (Frank Taylor)

◆​ Taylor, when mapping old shorelines around the great lakes notice that tilting

took place in lakes

●​ He realized the continents were not as stable as we were lead to believe

○​ They were sitting on some sort of medium that was mobile

◆​ Essentially the earth/continents are soft

●​ He goes on to trace a large mountain belt that goes throughout the world

○​ He came to the conclusion that these belts were not just a result

of contraction/shrinking but also compression due to continents

moving over time

◆​ He said it was because of the earth spinning the

continents were moving away from their poles and going

towards the equator

◆​ Rebounding explained tilting lake levels

●​ During the last ice age there was a great weight (a big ice sheet) placed

on the earth's crust

○​ When the weight is removed the crust comes back up

◆​ But it does so depending on how far away it is from the

center of the mass

●​ Like a memory foam mattress, it takes time for the

foam to go back to its original shape

➔​ ‘Continental Drift’ and Pangea: 1915 (Alfred Wegener)

◆​ Wegner read taylors work and was influenced by it and wrote “The Origins of

Continents and Oceans”

●​ In this book he proposed the continental drift

 ○​ Essentially that the drift resulted in the exists of a supercontinent

(pangea)

●​ Since his book/findings were written in german the science community

disregarded it

○​ Being german in the 1950s made it hard to be given serious

consideration

◆​ Suffered from professional, nationalistic, and linguistic

biases.

◆​ What Wegner cited as evidence of the existence of pangea was:

●​ climate belts

○​ In the rock record, when looking at rocks of a certain age you see

matching climate belts

◆​ Different rocks forming on the surface of the earth

depending on the temperature

●​ Different rocks forming in the arctic then the

equator today

◆​ The continuous climate belts that made the matching rocks

found across continents can be explained if they were all

near each other at some point

○​ He also saw a continuity in glaciers through its climate belts

◆​ You can find glacial deposits 2 million years old

●​ It only makes sense if you had all these land

masses (continents) together at someone point

○​ Because i can travel over water

●​ Fossil belts

○​ Animals that can't swim because they were really heavy being

found across continents

 ◆​ It makes sense if they simply walked to the other land

masses and died there

◆​ The response to the continental drift was extremely negative (particularly by

physicists

●​ ‘German fairy tale’, ‘Pretentious-looking publication’ - in Science

◆​ And opposed by geophysicists such as Sir Harold Jeffreys at Cambridge

(1891-1989)

●​ Studied earthquakes and how they can be used to map earth’s structure

●​ The Earth’s interior was considered too stiff to allow continental drift

➔​ Mantle convection currents: 1928 (Arthur Holmes)

◆​ Holmes understood there was a lot of radioactive activity held among minerals

●​ Makes then hotter thus changing the way it behaves

◆​ Holmes comes up with the idea that deep within the mantel there are convection

currents

●​ Basically a wholesale movement of a material

○​ Eg. If you had hot water convection would be hot water moving up

and the cold water moving down

●​ The rising of the mantel caused the continents to move apart

◆​ Pangea was proved by magnetic minerals

●​ because they align with the Earth's magnetic field at the time the rocks

formed

○​ As magma cools and solidifies, iron-rich crystals called magnetite

align with the Earth's magnetic field.

◆​ This process is similar to how a compass needle points

north

○​ And so a magnetite crystal would point at a different direction now

then it would at the point of its creation

◆​ This shows apparent polar wander curves

 ●​ a path that shows the perceived movement of the

Earth's magnetic poles relative to a continent.

○​ Proves the movement of continents

➔​ Mid-ocean ridges and trenches: 1957 (Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen)

◆​ Throughout wwii and its aftermath technology was developed to detect

submarines and understand the seafloor

●​ This made way for the development of sonar devices

○​ This is geophysics, which includes

◆​ Echo sounder, swath bathymetry, seismic reflection, sound

source, hydrophone, side scan tow vehicle

◆​ By 1957 this data of the sea gets collected and curated into a new type of atlas

by Tharp and Heezen

●​ They a release a map of the ocean floor with a level of detail no one has

seen before

○​ They illustrated ocean ridges, trenches, fractures and shelves

◆​ Tharp saw the features of the seafloor and believed it is

fairly dynamic

●​ She also advocated for the continental drift

➔​ Sea floor spreading’: 1962 (Harold Hess)

◆​ Hess was incharge of transporting soldiers during the war making him very

familiar with the sea

●​ With the new equipment he saw landforms on the seafloor

○​ He began to document/describe what he saw

◆​ He called it geopoetry

◆​ Hess introduced the idea of seafloor spreading

●​ He suggests that these linear ridges on the seafloor are places where the

seafloor is being formed

 ○​ These trenches/ditches on the seafloor (normally on the edges of

continents) are places where ocean floor is destroyed

◆​ Places where are old ocean floor is being pushed down

below something else (destroying it)

●​ He comes up with this idea that the ocean floor is formed in places the

mantel is rising

○​ And being destroyed at places where there are trenches

◆​ Subduction: tectonic Plates are destroyed

●​ Recognized by Benioff Zones

○​ Where earthquakes dip into the interior

◆​ Mid Ocean Ridges: Plates created

➔​ 1965 ‘Wander paths’ for continents (Ted Irving) and ‘magnetic stripes ’on the ocean

floors (Fred Vine)

◆​ Earth’s Magnetic Field reverses polarity every so often.

●​ We can see and date magnetic reversals on land where there are many

successively stacked lava flows.

○​ Magnetic reversals occur on average every 500,000 years (with

variation)

◆​ Takes about 10,000 years or less for a reversal to occur

◆​ To testHess’s hypothesis of seafloor spreading we would expect to see that at the

center of ridges we have a normal polarity

●​ but off the ridges we would have a reverse polarity

○​ If magma is being formed at the center of the ridge then pushing

on either side we should see a symmetrical ticker tape of reversals

on either side of the ridge

◆​ Vine, Matthew, and Morely hypothesis:

●​ Seafloor spreading is a result of old seafloor being pushed away and off

of the ridge by new seafloor.

 ○​ They identified that across these ridges there was a symmetrical

pattern of magnetic stripes

◆​ That means rock found away from the ridge was older than

rock found at the center

➔​ Computer reconstruction of Pangea: 1965 (Edward Bullard)

◆​ As technology progressed scientists were able to use computers to reconstruct

and confirmed the fit of modern day continents

●​ By the mid 50s observations align with the continental drift, but not HOW

➔​ Transform faults and hot spots: 1965 (Tuzo Wilson)

◆​ Wilson identified hot spots, which are areas the mantel is really hot

●​ Where there is hot mantel it rises and it brings heat from the earth's

center to the surface

○​ Resulting in volcanos

●​ The hot spots prove the movements of plates in the seafloor

◆​ Wilson comes up with a third type of plate boundary

●​ A transform fault/margin (which are fractures cutting across ridges)

○​ Where a new plate is neither being created nor destroyed

◆​ Eg. the san andreas fault (a fault on land)

○​ Fracture zones are necessary because the earth is a sphere so it

allows for creation of ocean floor on a sphere

➔​ Plate tectonics 1968 (Tuzo Wilson)

◆​ Wilson comes up with a uniformed/harmonious plate tectonic theory

●​ He divides the earth into ‘The United Plates of Planet Earth’

○​ He describes the entire surface as a collection of tectonic plates

◆​ 24 major plates

●​ The creation, destruction, movement of these plates

result in these continents being moved

●​ Plates are not flat

 ➔​ Supercontinent cycle 1974 (John Dewey)

◆​ The breakup of Pangea can also be thought of as the OPENING of new oceans

between continents

●​ However, when continents move, they inevitably end up destroying older

oceans by subduction

○​ They move over things, and the ocean they move over gets pushed

into the mantel and becomes destroyed

◆​ Each cycle lasts about 500 m.y

●​ The last supercontinent was pangea

◆​ Oceans” are growing and dying all the time in phases

●​ Embryonic and juvenile oceans (like the Red Sea)

●​ Mature oceans (like the Atlantic)

●​ Dying Oceans (like the Pacific)

●​ Dead Oceans (like the Tethys)

Week 2 - Earth’s Deep Interior

➔​ Earthquakes

◆​ Earthquakes release a large amount of energy

●​ We use that energy to determine things like the structure of the earth

●​ We can also use it to determine the location of plate boundaries

◆​ An earthquake is pent up energy being release when rocks slide against one

another but get stuck at a point

●​ Along the fault plane

➔​ Focus vs. Epicenter

◆​ focus = The place where the energy is released

●​ the epicentre = The spot directly above the focus on the surface

○​ Where most of the damage of an earthquake occurs

○​ Usually within the first 10 km of the focus

◆​ But you can have a focus around 800 km of depth

 ●​ Max limit before things get too soft to rupture

because of the heat from the core

◆​ At the surface we can see a surface expression of this movement

●​ Called a fault scarp

○​ Implies depository (like a cliff)

●​ The line when the fault plane comes to the surface is called a fault trace

➔​ Types of Plate Boundaries: The United Plates: Convergent, Divergent, Transform

◆​ Converging plate boundaries: when plates move away from each other

●​ Covering boundaries are marked by large megathrust earthquakes

○​ Because of the pushing down on the crust into the centre

◆​ Really dangerous one

●​ oceanic crust converging with oceanic or continental crust produces

‘subduction zones’;

○​ Young oceanic crust is hotter and sits higher up and is lower

density

◆​ Old crust is heavier and thus sinks lower

○​ Much thinner than continental

◆​ Max thickness is 8-10 km

○​ Made up of magnesium and iron (ferric) (“Mafic” magnesium +

ferric)

○​ Darker

●​ continental crust converging with continental produces ‘obduction zones’

○​ Too buoyant to subduct

○​ Tends to be much thinker that oceanic

◆​ Can get up to 100 km in thickness

○​ Tends to be light in color and rich in minerals feldspar and silica

(“Felsic” = feldspar + silica)

 ○​ Continental crust acts like a blanket preventing heat from the

mantle getting to the surface.

◆​ Diverging plate boundaries: when plates move towards each other

●​ Produces oceanic crust

◆​ Transforming plate boundaries: when plates move past each other

◆​ Isostasy - the rising or falling of land in response to its density

●​ This is what happens to the crust as it sits on mantel rock

○​ Mantel is higher density

◆​ If there's added weight onto the crust, the crust and

mantle both sink

●​ Eg. mountain belts extend both upward and

downward since it is sinking from below into mantel

●​ Eg. an iceberg floating on water

●​ Because oceanic crust is denser it tends to sit lower than continental

crust of equal thickness

➔​ Earthquakes and Plate Motion: Hot Spot Tracks

◆​ Prove plates move

●​ We can prove that plates move because there are points in the earth that

are effectively stationary

○​ These points are where we have upwelling of hot mantle rock

coming from the core mantle boundary through the mantel

◆​ Called a mantle plume

●​ Not molten material/magma, their just hot rock

●​ When this hot mantle rock gets to a place near the surface/just under the

lithosphere, it heats up the litho and causes volcanic eruption

○​ These volcanic areas are called hot spots

◆​ The mantle plumes are stationary but the litho is not

●​ As a result we get a hot spot track

 ○​ Hot spot tracks tell us about plate movement and mantle

heterogeneity

●​ As the plate moves on over time, that hot spot is constantly feeding new

volcanoes which erupt

○​ As a result we get a chain of volcanoes

◆​ The further the volcano from the hot spot the older it is

●​ This tells us about the plates motions

➔​ Plates vs. Continental vs. the Crust and the Lithosphere

◆​ Both oceanic and continental crust can coexist within the same plate.

●​ Continents are sections of continental crust which are embedded within a

larger tectonic plate

◆​ Active vs. Passive continental margin​

●​ Active margin coincides with the plate margin

○​ Margin of both a continent and a plate

●​ Passive margin is not coincident with a plate margin

○​ Margin of a continent but not a plate

◆​ Eg. newfoundland

◆​ Crust vs Lithosphere

➔​ Seismic Waves: Energy → Body and Surface Waves

◆​ Body waves: transmitted through the body/centre of the earth

◆​ Surface waves: transmitted just around the surface of the earth/along the top of

the crust

◆​ Deeping drilling on land doesn't penetrate very far

●​ Max 13 km approx. in depth (at sea 8 km)

○​ Can't get deeper because the hole that is drilled is under a lot of

pressure from the rock

◆​ The rock is always trying to fill that hole and it causes

blowouts at the top of the hole

 ○​ It also can't get deeper because the steel from the drill starts to

soften

◆​ As you go deeper in the earth there is geothermal gradient

●​ which is 2.5 degrees hotter every 100 m from the

surface

➔​ Seismographs and Seismograms

◆​ Japan is known as earthquake nation

●​ The place where four plates meet

○​ Pacific plate (which is being subducted) is really old by the time it

gets here

◆​ Older plates have higher density

○​ The philippine plate

◆​ Relatively young

◆​ Lower density then the eurasian plate

●​ Subducted under it

◆​ Oceanic crust

○​ The eurasian plate

◆​ Continental crust

○​ The north american plate

◆​ A really poorly defined boundary between the north

american plate and the eurasian plate

●​ Can’t be easily separated

●​ Where the science of seismology was established

○​ Can be traced back to the Nobi earthquake​

◆​ Written about by John Milne and W.K. Burton (The Great

Earthquake of Japan 1891)

●​ It popularized the notion of monitoring these

earthquakes
 ○​ After Nobi the nation began setting up networks of seismic

grounds

◆​ In order to record seismicity

●​ You can see a trace of Nobi’s fault on the landscape of Japan

○​ A field of study called tectonic geomorphology which allows us to

look at the shape of landscape and interpet what tectonic motions

happened in the past

◆​ Earthquake offset: is the horizontal displacement of points

on either side of a fault line

◆​ Seismographs: the instrument that detects earthquakes

●​ Invented in the wake of Nobi

●​ It is essentially a weight with a pen attached to it

○​ That weight is attached to a spring when it shakes the weight

shakes

◆​ Creating a seismogram on a rotating drum of paper

●​ Seismograms: the squiggly line that is produced by

the seismograph

●​ We can use the seismogram to estimate the intensity of shaking

○​ This lead to the richter scale

◆​ A scale that tries to quantify the amount of shaking (M1 to

10)

○​ No longer used to measure; now we use a moment magnitude

scale

◆​ Its calculation are based on the actual energy released by

the fault rupture

●​ It works so each increment on the scale produces

32 times more energy than the on below

 ○​ So an M5 produces 32 times more energy

than an M4

◆​ M6 produces 32x more than M5 and

1000x more than an M4

●​ Every 2 points releases 1000

more

●​ The first squiggle in the seismograph is the p wave, then the s (which is a

little bigger), then the surface (which is much bigger)

○​ This is useful when dealing with the surface if the earth

◆​ It allows us to pinpoint the location of where an earthquake

was/where the epicenter was

●​ That's because the amount of time it takes for

those waves to travel to a seismograph station is

reflective of how far that station is from the

epicenter

○​ This is useful because if we have 3 stations

all detecting an earthquake we can use that

interval to triangulate its location

➔​ Using seismic waves to investigate the structure of the crust

◆​ 2 different types of seismic waves

●​ Body wave

○​ Types: p and s

○​ Travel through the earth

○​ Travels faster than surface waves

●​ Surface waves

○​ Types: Love and rayleigh wave

○​ Travels along the surface of the earth

○​ The destructive type

 ◆​ They tell us about structural damage but not really the

interior of the earth

◆​ We can look at the speed of these waves to figure out what the density is of the

material of which they are travelling

●​ They are also capable of refracting (bending) when traveling through

different materials, reflect off surfaces, and change velocity depending

on density of the material

○​ Eg when you are looking through water, because the ray of light

you are looking at is changing from air to water it bends, the same

things happen at the center of the earth with these energy waves

being transferred from one type of rock to another

◆​ That refracting can tell us about the materials

➔​ P and S wave ‘shadow zones’ define Earth’s core and mantle

◆​ P waves (compressional): primary waves; arrives first

●​ Can travel through liquid and solids

○​ Can tell us what parts of the earth is liquid/solid

●​ First hint of seismicity that hits any seismograph/seismic monitoring

station

○​ The fastest form of energy released by an earthquake

◆​ Because it involves shaking in the direction of the

propagation of the wave

●​ 5-7 km per/sec

◆​ S waves (shear): secondary waves; arrives next

●​ Cannot travel through liquid

●​ Slower than p wave

○​ 3-5 km p/s

○​ Because it involves shaking perpendicular to the direction of the

propagation of the wave

 ◆​ By looking at P and S waves we can define things like the boundary between the

core and mantle

●​ The mantel is all solid but the core has a liquid exterior and solid interior

○​ When p waves and s waves are transmitted through the earth's

body the p wave hits the boundary between mantle and the outer

core

◆​ The p wave refracts then hits the other side of the core

then refracts again

●​ As a result we get p wave shadow zones

○​ Areas where no p waves are recorded

because of the refraction

●​ The p wave goes through the core and hits a station

on the other side of the globe

◆​ S waves, because they don't travel through liquid, get

blocked out once hitting the liquid outer core

●​ Therefore a station on the other side of the

epicenter does not receive any s waves

○​ Known as S wave shadow zone

◆​ Much larger than p wave shadow

➔​ Information about planetary interiors from meteorites and xenoliths

◆​ We know the earth is made of nickel-iron alloy because we've seen little

fragments of cores from other planets

●​ Meteorites are effectively broken up planetesimals that made their way to

earth

○​ Some of these planetesimals have a core like the earth

◆​ We know the composition of all planets are roughly the

same in term of how they form and condense

 ○​ If you cut upon and polish a meteorite you would see a

Widmanstätten pattern

◆​ Thin needle like crystal markings

●​ These crystals can only form at the density you find

in the interior of the planets

◆​ Mantle Xenoliths are very rich in olivine and peridotite giving it a green colour.

●​ Made of silicate minerals like the crust

○​ these are more enriched in iron and magnesium (ultramafic)

➔​ Parts of the Interior: Core, mantle & crust

◆​ Hotter and increased density the deeper you go

◆​ Like an avocado

●​ skin = crust (oceanic + continental)

○​ Thin and rigid

●​ Avocado flesh = mantel

○​ Softer material, makes up half of the interior, different

composition than crust

●​ Pit = core

○​ Solid, different composition than metal

➔​ Lithosphere and Asthenosphere

◆​ Lithosphere makes up our tectonic plates (lithospheric plate = tectonic plate)

●​ Rigid plate that slide around on weaker rock (asthenosphere)

○​ A mechanical layer

○​ Includes the crust and a layer of mantle rock that is cold enough

to be stuck at the bottom of the crust

○​ 100 km thick + the thickness of the continental crust above it

◆​ Below the Mohorovicic discontinuity (the Moho) is the asthenosphere

●​ Its weak because it is hot enough that the mantel starts to melt a tiny

amount making it softer/gooey

 ○​ Under low pressure as well

◆​ The lithosphere is able to move because it sits on such a

soft layer

●​ A low velocity zone

➔​ Lithoprobe project

◆​ The creation of artificial seismic waves to tell us about the structure of the crust

●​ Used 20-tonne trucks called vibroseis trucks to force seismic waves

beneath the Earth

○​ The created energy bounces off the structures/layers there are in

the crust

◆​ Called seismic reflection

●​ Allows us to make pictures of the structure if the

crust

Week 3 - Divergent Boundaries

➔​ The Wilson Cycle and the start of oceans at divergent plate boundaries

◆​ The Wilson Cycle describes how oceans open and close

●​ Stage 1 (embryonic ocean): the continent undergoes extension

○​ As a result the continental crust starts to thin and a rift valley is

formed in the middles

◆​ Eg. the east african rift

○​ Heterogenous: granites and other igneous rocks, sedimentary and

metamorphic rocks

○​ Felsic

●​ Stage 2 (juvenile ocean): the rift (continent tearing in two) basin becomes

filled with water (becomes a thin narrow ocean) and we get oceanic crust

formed on the floor from the basalt eruptions

○​ Oceanic crust is much thinner and denser than oceanic crust so it

sits lower which is why ocean can flood in

 ○​ The continent edges get faulted and uplifted

○​ This is when we start to get the development of passive margins

◆​ Which is the horizon that forms at the transition from

continental and oceanic crust

●​ Eg. the red sea

➔​ Igneous Rocks and Silica

◆​ Silica

●​ Silica controls most properties of magma

○​ The most important group of minerals are silicate minerals

◆​ containing silicon and oxygen and accounts for 90% of all

minerals.

●​ SiO2 + other elements

◆​ Makes up silica

○​ Continental crust = “Intermediate” or “felsic” = feldspar and silica

○​ Oceanic crust = “Mafic” = Magnesium and iron (ferric) <50% silica

○​ Mantle = Ultramafic – has less than 40% silica

◆​ Magma is generated from melting of rock

●​ Magma is essentially a crystal mush, with dissolved gas held in by

pressure

●​ Rock melts into magma when

○​ they undergo decompression

◆​ Move it to a place where its under a lot of pressure (like

deep in the earth)

●​ Or move it to a place low in pressure so it can no

longer hold itself in a solid form

◆​ Happens at the plume

○​ if heated (rare), or

○​ if they get wet (flux-induced melting)

 ◆​ Happens on the surface around subduction zones

●​ Melting is always partial melting

○​ more silica-rich minerals generally melt before more silica-poor

minerals

◆​ Magma is always higher in silica then the rock in which it

melted

◆​ Rock vs mineral

●​ A rock is a naturally formed, consolidated material composed of minerals

●​ A mineral is a naturally occurring, inorganic, crystalline solid

○​ has a specific chemical composition.

○​ They are the building blocks of rocks

◆​ Convergent margins are felsic or intermediate (silica-rich)

●​ e.g., andesite typical of continental crust.

●​ Associated with stratovolcanoes

○​ They produce ash which can help with dating

●​ Convergent Margin magmatism tends to be “wet” from flux melting above

the subducting slab Benioff Zone

○​ Very viscous magma

◆​ Viscosity = a resistance to flow; very sticky

●​ Eg. mayo has higher viscosity than oil

◆​ Viscosity is controlled by silica and water

●​ More water = more silica = higher viscosity

◆​ Divergent margins are mafic (iron-rich and silica-poor)

●​ e.g., basalt typical of oceanic crust.

●​ Associated with Shield volcanoes

●​ Melting of ultramafic rocks (peridotite) makes a mafic magma (cools to

basalt)

○​ Melting mantel makes oceanic crust

 ◆​ This is why oceanic crust is made out of basalt or various

forms of salt that have the same silica composition

●​ Magma at divergent margins is “dry” produced from melting at the top of

the mantle Benioff Zone

○​ When produced above something like a mantle plume or rising

mantel has no water/dry

○​ Magma at divergent margins don't have water in it​

◆​ Wet magma has more silica in it

◆​ Igneous rock

●​ cool either at the Earth’s surface (extrusive or volcanic e.g. lava flow) or

underground (intrusive or plutonic e.g., dikes)

●​ The product of cooled magma

➔​ Continental Rifting and the creation of Passive Margins

◆​ Passive margin is not a plate boundary

●​ Margins of continents not of plates

◆​ Embryonic ocean: flood basalts (runny magma that flood on the land)

●​ How new oceans form

○​ Continental crust sits for a long time and moves around and at

some it goes over areas that make cracks forms

◆​ These areas are mantle plumes

●​ When a big shield moving over a mantle plume the

plume creates areas of weakness that bulge/dome

up and crack (thermal doming)

○​ Those cracks are called rifts

◆​ Its cracks in three’s (triple junctions)

○​ Two of the arms of the triple junction become the new successful

ocean but the third arm doesn't

◆​ Known as a failed rift (Aulocogens)

 ●​ Ancient faile drifts are where we have large river

systems today

◆​ Juvenile ocean: Early shelves and incipient oceanic crust

●​ After getting away from the heat source of the mantle the passive margin

is initiated

○​ All the collapsed faulting material gets stuck on the edge marking

the transition from continental to oceanic crust

●​ Its colling and everything gets inundated by sea water

○​ Including what used to be the fault blocks

◆​ This creates a zone where sediments that are washed off

the continents collect where they are buried and lithified

(turned to rock).

●​ Known as a continental shelf

○​ continental shelves are typically considered

part of a passive margin

○​ Shelves contain most of the world’s oil and

gas and the world's fisheries

○​ Salt diapirs are common within continental

shelves

◆​ Plate reconfiguration

◆​ Dead sea fault

●​ An endorpheric basen

➔​ Case example: East African Rift including Ethiopia, Red Sea, Jordan and Turkey

Week 4 - Mature Oceans (Iceland)

➔​ Age of the ocean floor: Slow and fast-spreading ridges

◆​ The youngest material of the ocean is in the center of the ocean basis

●​ As you go outward it gets older

 ○​ Big chunks of the ocean floor (the oldest parts) have been

subducted

◆​ Sucked down into the mantle

◆​ Spreading centers are not all equal

●​ They do not create ocean floor at the same rate

○​ Eg. the east pacific rise is a much faster spreading center than the

mid atlantic rift

◆​ Two things control the rate of spreading

●​ Slab Pull - The pull of subductions

○​ Subducting older oceanic lithosphere exerts a tension on the mid

ocean ridge

◆​ Older oceanic floor subducts at a greater speed than

younger ocean floor

●​ Its harder to subduct younger floor

●​ Ridge Push - when thermal uplift (when a mantle rises from the earth and

causes a rise) of the mid ocean ridge system causes the slabs on top of

the rising area to slide off the sides in either direction

○​ A gravitational phenomena

◆​ Another factor that is a consequence of these different spreading rates are the

different morphologies of mid ocean ridges

●​ Fast spreading ridges (where magma is constantly replenishing that

spreading center) tend to be hot, high on the bottom of the ocean floor,

and wide (as a result of maintaining that heat supply)

●​ Slow spreading ridges don't have as much heat, not as much magma

being produced, not as much mantle being upwelled, and tend to collapse

in the middle (since they're being pulled apart but magma isn't filling in the

gap fast enough)

➔​ Direct Observation
◆​ Alvin - 1972 submersibles (maned, small submarine)

●​ The 1st exploration of an active mid ocean ridge (the mid atlantic ridge)

○​ It revealed that the deep sea was an active environment, one with

hydrothermal activity in ‘smokers’

◆​ Told us about the movement of minerals on the seafloor

and how minerals get concentrated at the hydrothermal

chimneys

◆​ Hydrothermal activity – Black and White Smokers

●​ Smokers are little pillars that stick up along the mid ocean ridge

○​ from here escapes hat, mineral rich fluid

◆​ Like a chimney

○​ The black and white is from high concentration of dissolved

minerals that get pumped out through chimneys

◆​ Black smokers - really hot hydrothermal fluids rich in

metals and sulfide minerals

◆​ White smokers - full of carbonate minerals (instead of

metallic minerals)

●​ when the water never gets up to really hot

temperatures (200 degree c)

○​ The smokers support entire communities of organisms

◆​ Microorganisms that as chemotrophic

●​ They derive energy from the process of

chemosynthesis

○​ Producing energy through chemical

reactions that come from hydrothermal

fluids

●​ This showed us that in mid ocean ridges, hydrothermal circulation occurs

 ○​ Sense ridges are highly fractures (there's faults that run through

them along the rift access) water gets drawn into those faults

◆​ The water gets drawn down into the crust and then it heats

and rises​

●​ The hot water scavages mineral from the bedrock

and dissolves it into itself (like salt in water)

○​ The hot water get shot up onto the surface

and the minerals come into contact with

colder water

◆​ The minerals then precipitate and

solidify which is how we get the build

up of the chimneys

➔​ Ancient MORS (mid ocean ridges)

◆​ Obducted and accreted Ophiolites

●​ Ophiolites refers to pieces of Earth's ancient oceanic crust and upper

mantle that have been exposed on land

○​ when you look at ophiolites they're made out of green stone

◆​ This green tint is the result of extensive hydrothermal

circulation

○​ It's the only way we can see the entire thickness/structure of

oceanic crust

●​ Obduction happens during the closure of ocean basins

●​ Ophiolites are made up of:

○​ Pillow basalts (layer 1)

◆​ a volcanic rock that forms when basaltic lava erupts

underwater. T

●​ he lava's rapid cooling creates pillow-shaped

structures
 ○​ sheeted dikes (cooled igneous intrusions) (layer 2)

◆​ Where basalt is repeated injected up through big cracks

●​ They don't go perfectly vertically; they get warped

as they get pushed up to land

○​ Gabbro (layer 3)

◆​ Where basaltic magma cools very slowly in an axial magma

chamber

●​ In magma chambers occurs the crystallization of

minerals happening within magma

○​ Some minerals that are lower in density

than the magma as they crystallize rise up

within the chamber

◆​ Higher density fall down which is

how gabbro is formed

●​ Building the oceanic crust at mid ridges : the onion model

○​ Pillow basalts erupted at surface

○​ Intrusion of sheeted dikes at depth’

○​ settling of gabbro from magma chambers

◆​ Serpentinization

●​ When basalt rock is exposed to water and hydrothermal circulation they

turn green

○​ Because green minerals precipitate in them​

◆​ Olivine (an abundant mineral in the salt) reacts with water

to make the mineral serpentine

➔​ Iceland: the land of fire and ice

◆​ The Iceland Plume

 ●​ Since its mid ocean ridge is on top of a mantle plume there’s a lot of

tectonic movement going on

○​ We have already seen this situation in the Afar Triangle where a

mantle plume underneath continental crust is causing the release

of flood basalts to make a Large Igneous Province

●​ The icelandic plume was initially responsible for continental breakup (40

mill years ago)

○​ The plume came up when greenland was in direct proximity to

scandinavia and great britain

●​ RELATIVE - How one plate moves in comparison to another plate (e.g.,

moving apart, colliding, or sliding past each other).

●​ ABSOLUTE plate motion - The plate’s motion relative to a fixed point (like

the mantle below).

◆​ Reykjanes Ridge and fissure eruptions

●​ Reykjanes ridge - the Mid Atlantic Ridge on Iceland

○​ The reykjanes ridge undergoes ridge jumping in response to the

drift of the ridge over the plume

◆​ Ridge jumping - refers to a process in plate tectonics

where segments of a mid-ocean ridge shift or reorganize

over time.

●​ Fissures - are cracks in the crust.

○​ They can go down several kilometers in depth

◆​ Magma likes to move along these cracks (fissure eruptions)

◆​ Flows and Hyaloclastites

●​ Moberg mountains- when a volcanic eruption happens under water

○​ The water pressure initially suppresses the lava, leading to the

formation of pillow basalts.

 ○​ The lava was trapped within the ice, forming flat-topped shapes as

it cooled and solidified.

◆​ These flat tops are known as "Stapi" or Tuya.

○​ As the lake fills up, the pressure decreases.

◆​ The lava fragments in a process called reticulation,

breaking into:

●​ Ash (sometimes)

●​ Larger fragments

○​ A layer of breccias (rock composed of broken lava fragments) and

hyaloclastites (glassy volcanic rock) forms above the pillow

basalts due to rapid quenching of lava.

◆​ Once the lake drains away, the lava erupts directly onto

land.

●​ With no water to suppress it, it forms flows on the

surface instead of breccias

◆​ Tephra - the debris that comes out of a volcano

◆​ Jokulhaups - large floods caused by volcanic eruptions under the vatnajokull ice

cap

◆​ Grindavik Eruptions

●​ Grindavik is right along a region of high seismicity

○​ Where the ridge is trying to crack open due to the moving of

reykjanes (ridge jumping)

●​ Another eruption is eldfell (a volcano on the south coast of iceland) 1973

and lakigigar 1783

➔​ What happens as oceanic crust gets older​

◆​ The thickness, coldness of lithosphere is going to increase​

●​ It gets thicker in the bottom when the mantle underplates the bottom the

crust
 ●​ It gets thicker from the top because it gets draped in a thick layer of

sediment

○​ That sediment comes from two sources

◆​ Primary productivity - there are microorganisms that live

in the water and when they die they contribute to sediment

●​ Secondary productivity - when fishes eat the

microorganisms and contribute to the sediment

◆​ Terrigenous sediment - Comes from land

Week 5 - Converging margins

➔​ Three types of Convergent Boundary:

◆​ Ocean-ocean

◆​ Ocean-continent

◆​ continent-continent

➔​ Plates interact in three ways around the Pacific Ring:

◆​ Ocean crust vs ocean crust (‘subduction’): island arcs

◆​ Ocean crust vs continental crust (‘subduction’): magmatic arcs

◆​ Oceanic or continental crust simply slide past each other (‘transform’):

➔​ The angle of subduction causes underthrusting or rollback

➔​ Hazards of Arc Volcanoes:

◆​ Sector Collapse

◆​ Lateral Blast

◆​ Ash Clouds

◆​ Pyroclastic Flows/Nuee Ardente

◆​ Ignimbrites

➔​ Megathrust earthquakes and crustal flexure

◆​ Subsided and uplifted crust and the field of tectonic geomorphology

◆​ Hazards: Tsunamis, Liquefaction

◆​ Japan and Aleutian Islands

➔​ Transform faults

◆​ creeping and locked segments

◆​ The San Andreas Fault

➔​ Magmatic Arc Volcanos

◆​ The Andes

➔​ The Tethys Ocean and the Alpine-Himalaya Mountain Belt

◆​ Orogenesis and Obduction

➔​ Crustal Shortening in the Swiss Alps Volcanoes of Italy

➔​ Indenters and Escape Tectonics

➔​ The Himalayas

➔​ China