What is the origin of plate tectonics? The continents drift slowly (the timescale for substantial change is 10-100 million years), but that they drift at all is remarkable. The following figure illustrates the structure of the first 100-200 kilometers of the Earth's interior, and provides an answer to this question
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Slide Set for Chapter 02
The Way The Earth Works:
Examining Plate Tectonics
FIRST EDITION
by
ALLAN LUDMAN
STEPHEN MARSHAK
Notes de l'éditeur
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Earth’s major lithosphere plates.
Cross section showing activity at convergent, divergent, and transform
plate boundaries.
Physiographic map of the South Atlantic Ocean floor and adjacent continents.
NGDC/NOAA
Earth’s major climate zones.
Fossils and rock types indicate 280-Ma climate zones.
Blank map for continents in Figure 2.5.
Radiometric dating of lava flows indicates the magnetic reversals over the past 4 Ma.
Components of Earth’s magnetic field strength in the oceans.
Magnetic anomaly stripes.
Magnetic anomaly stripes.
Magnetic anomalies associated with different ocean ridges.
Bathymetric maps of the East Pacific Rise and Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
Marine Geoscience Data System/Natural Science Foundation
Bathymetric maps of the East Pacific Rise and Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
Marine Geoscience Data System/Natural Science Foundation
Origin of hot-spot island chains and seamounts.
Ages of Hawaiian volcanoes in millions of years before present.
Movement of the Pacific Plate over the Hawaiian hot spot.
The azimuth system.
Physiography of the Pacific Ocean floor showing ages of volcanoes in the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain.
NGDC/NOAA
Red Sea rift zone.
NGDC/NOAA.
Anatomy of an island arc-trench system.
Profiles across the Aleutian island arc-trench system.
Orange and green dash/dot lines illustrate calculation of melting depth.