Ocean's Basin

Plate techtonics and
ocean bathymetry
Historical context
• Alfred Wegener first suggested in 1915 that
continents can move over time.
*Based on visual match of coastlines
between continents
• Harry Hess then hypothesized in 1960 that

mantle convection drives the spread of sea floor.
*Based on seafloor topographic features
such as midocean ridges and trenches
Creating new ocean crust
Theory of Plate
Tectonics begins
to be accepted in
the 1960s
• F.Vine and D. Matthews demonstrated that
spreading seafloor shows imprint of magnetic
reversals (1963).
More evidence: age of ocean crust
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/geology/geology.html
Oceanic crust moves away
from Mid Oceanic Ridge (MOR)
and cools and subsides
Age of Oceanic Crust (Red = young)

3-3
Constructive margins
Destructive margins Midocean ridges
Subduction zones
Driving Mechanisms for Plate Motions

How fast is the sea floor spreading?
• Satellite GPS measurement

– It depends on locations
– 2-10 cm/year
• Size of ocean basin and the age of crust

– The age of old Pacific crust is 100+ million years
– The width of ocean basin is about 10,000km
10,000 km 10 7 m
 8  0.1 m/year
100 million years 10 years
Scientific Method for Earth Science?
Type of boundary between plates:
Constructive margins  Midocean ridges
Destructive margins
 Subduction zones
Conservative margins  Transform faults

Mapping the upper mantle (astenospere) with seismic
wave tomography
Conservative margins
Transform faults
Conservative margins
Transform faults
The San Andreas fault

in southern California
Life cycle of
Plates
“The
Wilson
Cycle”
Hot Spots ?
Coreal Reefs
Atolls 
Palmyra Island
Fanning Island
Other ways Plate Tectonics
affect ocean circulation and
climate?
1978
Mt. St. Helens

• Cascade’s most historically active volcano
• Erupted May 18,1980 (~0.1- 0.3 km3)
• Killed 57 people
• Threatens nearby Portland
• Had considerable, but mostly unobserved deformation prior to

eruption
2002
Mt. Pinatubo, Philippines
• Erupted June 15, 1991
• World’s largest eruption in 75 years (~10km 3)
• 58,000 evacuated
• 320 lives lost (mostly sickness & roof collapse)

Effects of Volcanic eruptions on the solar incoming radiation
Agung
1963
Chichón Pinatubo
1982 1991
Cartoon of Volcanic Impacts on the Earth Heat Budget
Robock, Reviews of Geophysics, 38, 2 / May 2000
Late Jurassic
The supercontinent of Pangea
began to break apart in the
Middle Jurassic. In the Late
Jurassic the Central Atlantic
Ocean was a narrow ocean
separating Africa from
eastern North America.
Eastern Gondwana had begun
to separate form Western
Gondwana
Cretaceous
During the Cretaceous the
South Atlantic Ocean opened.
India separated from
Madagascar and raced
northward on a collision
course with Eurasia. Notice
that North America was
connected to Europe, and that
Australia was still joined to
Antarctica.
K/T extinction
The bull's eye marks the
location of the Chicxulub
impact site. The impact of a
10 mile wide comet caused
global climate changes that
killed the dinosaurs and
many other forms of life. By
the Late Cretaceous the
oceans had widened, and
India approached the
southern margin of Asia.
Eocene
50 - 55 million years ago
India began to collide with
Asia forming the Tibetan
plateau and Himalayas.
Australia, which was
attached to Antarctica,
began to move rapidly
northward.
Collision of continental crust
3-2 Sea-Floor Spreading
• Whereas oceanic ridges indicate tension,

continental mountains indicate compressional
forces are squeezing the land together.
Sedimentary Rocks Squeezed by Compression

Miocene
20 million years ago,
Antarctica was coverd by ice
and the northern continents
were cooling rapidly. The
world has taken on a
"modern" look, but notice
that Florida and parts of Asia
were flooded by the sea.
Last Ice Age
When the Earth is in its "Ice
House" climate mode, there
is ice at the poles. The polar
ice sheet expands and
contacts because of
variations in the Earth's orbit
(Milankovitch cycles). The
last expansion of the polar
ice sheets took place about
18,000 years ago.
Modern World
We are entering a new phase
of continental collision that
will ultimately result in the
formation of a new Pangea
supercontinent in the future.
Global climate is warming
because we are leaving an
Ice Age and because we are
adding greenhouse gases to
the atmosphere.

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Plate techtonics and

• Harry Hess then hypothesized in 1960 that

Age of Oceanic Crust (Red = young)

Driving Mechanisms for Plate Motions

• Satellite GPS measurement

• Size of ocean basin and the age of crust

Constructive margins  Midocean ridges

Conservative margins  Transform faults

The San Andreas fault

Mt. St. Helens

• Erupted May 18,1980 (~0.1- 0.3 km3)

• Threatens nearby Portland

• Had considerable, but mostly unobserved deformation prior to

• World’s largest eruption in 75 years (~10km 3)

• 320 lives lost (mostly sickness & roof collapse)

• Whereas oceanic ridges indicate tension,

Sedimentary Rocks Squeezed by Compression

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