Science CK12 Summary 11-19-24

Jonathon Hensley
11-19-24
Mrs. Carter – Science
CK12 Summary
- The ideas of continental drift and seafloor spreading were merged into the
theory of plate tectonics.
- The tectonic plates comprised of the continents and seafloor are moving
around constantly. These plates are in the lithosphere.
- Seismographs were invented to detect foreign nuclear explosions but were
used to find the center of earthquakes from the point they formed known as
the epicenter.
- Earthquake epicenters outline the plates whereas mid ocean ridges, trenches,
and large faults mark the edges of tectonic plates. This is where earthquakes
occur.
- The lithosphere is divided into many small and large plates which edges can
be drawn from earthquake epicenters. One plate can be made up of oceanic
or continental crust, but most plates are made of both.
- Plate movements across earth are called plate tectonics and each plate
moves about as fast as a human’s fingernails grow.
- Seafloor spreading drives the plates.
- All oceanic crust moves in the form of convection. Hot minerals from the
mantle rise up and are cooled then push outwards from a oceanic ridge. This
rock/basalt then moves towards an oceanic trench where it is brought
beneath the earth, heated up, and cycled back through into new crust.
- Plate boundaries are where plates meet, and most geologic activity happens
there including earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain ranges.
- Divergent plate boundaries are when plates move away from each other.
Convergent plate boundaries are when plates move towards each other.
Transform plate boundaries are when plates slip or slide past each other.
- The type of plate and boundary determine what type of geologic activity will
be there.
- In divergent plate boundaries plates move apart from one another. Between
these two plates there is a rift valley in which lava flows out of and cools
rapidly, becoming basalt. Deeper in earths crust magma cools and becomes
gabbro and on the surface most observable rock is igneous. Lots of
earthquakes happen here as magma and plate tectonics constantly move.
This boundary usually happens in the ocean.
- When a divergent boundary happens above the sea it is called continental
rifting. Magma rises from the earth and cools into thinner and more brittle
rock. New ocean crusts erupt causing an ocean to form continents.
- When plates push against each other magma generation and earthquakes
result. This however depends on what the plates are made of.
- Convergent plate boundaries form when two plates collide with each other.
The denser oceanic plate is pushed beneath the continental plate causing the
rock to melt in a process called subduction. This area is called the subduction
zone and there are many earthquakes and volcanoes that take place. Magma
rises and erupts from volcanoes forming a line above the boundary known as
the continental arc.
- Volcanoes of northeastern California, Medicine Lake volcano, and the cascade
mountains are the result of subduction.
- If magma at a continental arc is felsic it is too thick to rise above the crust
leading it to slowly cool into granite or granodiorite bodies called batholiths.
These later form mountain ranges.
- When two oceanic plates push against each other the dense one falls
beneath the earth creating a trench with an island arc of volcanoes above.
- When two continental plates collide mountain ranges form comprised of
metamorphic rock. Earthquakes are commonly known to happen.
- The Appalachian Mountains are remains of a large mountain range formed
when North America collided with the Eurasian plate 250 million years ago.
- Transform plate boundaries are known as transform faults where plates move
in an opposite direction from one another creating large earthquakes.
- California is very geologically active as there is a transform plate boundary
called the San Andreas Fault, a divergent plate boundary off the shore, and a
convergent plate boundary between an oceanic plate and the North American
continental plate.
- Alfread Wegener was right on his theory as most continental movements
happen from tectonic plates.
- Wegener used the similarity of mountains on the west and east side of the
Atlantic Ocean for evidence of his theory. He was right as the Appalachian
Mountains formed on a convergent plate boundary.
- Before Pangea the continents were separated by a large ocean in place of the
Atlantic. The Atlantic Ocean grew but it is in a supercontinent cycle where the
Pacific Ocean now is growing. The Atlantic Ocean will soon start to grow.
- Small amounts of geologic activity known as intraplate activity happen in the
middle of tectonic plates in areas called hotspots where magma rises and
volcanoes form in a line slowly expanding.
- Geologists use a hotspot chain to tell the plates speed and direction.
- Magma usually doesn’t penetrate through the crust in a hotspot. An
exception to this would be at Yellowstone in the United States.
- The plate tectonics theory is the unifying theory of geology explaining how
Earth’s geography changes and will continue to change, how some places
have earthquakes while other don’t, how certain regions have deadly
volcanoes, and why mountain ranges are located where they are.
- Plate tectonics affect the rock cycle on Earth, the climate, and the evolution
of life.

Science CK12 Summary 11-19-24

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Jonathon Hensley

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