A

TECTONICS

The Earth in Motion

Mt. McKinley
(Denali)

B
(20320 ft)6194

AT M I
R IL A N D D T
G

ed

ite

rranean

Cape
Verde

NUBIA
P L ATE

Plateau of Tibet
A

A Y
A

Yunnan, China

Mt. Everest

Gujarat,
India

ARABIAN
PLATE
Arabian
Sea

Afa r

R O C K Y

Tokyo, Japan

PHILIPPINE
PLATE

INDIAN

Pinatubo, Philippines
Taal, Philippines

South

Bay
of
Bengal

China
Sea

P LAT E

A FR I C A N

PLATE

C a roline

FIRE

Mindanao, Philippines

Nevado del Ruiz, Colombia

PACI FI C

Philippine Sea

Latur,
India

F
G O

Qinghai, China

NORTH
PACIFIC
OCEAN

RIN

Soufriere Hills, Montserrat

Mt. Pelee, Martinique
CARIBBEAN PLATE Soufri`ere, St. Vincent

Kuril Islands, Russia

Tangshan, China
Fukui, Japan
Gansu and
Shanxi, China
Kobe, Japan

(29035 ft)8850

Ti b e sti
U p lift

C a r i b b e a n
S e a

Okhotsk

Ksudach, Russia

G OF FIRE

Edge of diffuse
plate boundary

Guatemala

a
n Se

El Chichon,
Mexico

G O B I

Western Northern
Erzincan, Iran
Iran
Turkey
Sea
Quetta, Pakistan
Bam, Iran

New England

P LAT E

EQUATOR

Reventador, Ecuador

G a l a p a g o s

Am

n
azo

Lake
Victoria
Lake
Tanganyika

Northern Peru

N A SCA

P L ATE

Rabaul Caldera, Papua New Guinea

Edge of diffuse
plate boundary

Merapi, Indonesia

P LAT E

INDIAN
OCEAN

St. Helena
Madagascar

SOUTH
ATLANTIC
OCEAN

Desert

Cape of Good Hope

6959(22831 ft)

Lamington,
Papua New Guinea
Coral
Sea

CAPRICORN
P LAT E certain
n

Re union

Kalahari

Ulawun, Papua New Guinea

Kelut, Indonesia
Agung,
Indonesia

C omoros

Cerro Aconcagua

CI

Quizapu, Chile

S O M A LI

Lake
Malawi

PA

Juan
F e r na n d e z

Tr i n d a d e

SO U TH A ME R I CA N

ST

OF FIRE

EA

FIR

E a st e r

AU STRALI AN

un
on
at i
c
Lo

A U S T R A L I A

PLATE
Tasman

Walvis Ridge

FI

SOUTH
PACIFIC
OCEAN

P L ATE

G am bi e r

OF

RING

RING

T ah i t i S oci e t y

5895(19340 ft)

Mt. Kosciuszko

RI

Southern Chile

Ea st Austra lia

SE

C roz e t

Cerro Hudson,
Chile

Dr

ak

ss
Pa

a ge

Ruapehu,
New Zealand

T a sma ntid

Ke rgue le n

Cape Horn

Sea

2228(7310 ft)

Bass Strait

L o u i sv i l l e

RING O
F FIRE

NTIC
-ATLA
MID
RIDGE

A
Tahiti

Kilimanjaro

Northern Bolivia
S am oa

Ea st Afric a

Locat
i on unc
ert ain

EQUATOR

Notable volcanic eruption

of the 20th century

Au s t ral Cook s

El Asnam,
Algeria

Gulf of
Mexico

Known volcanic eruption

during the past 10,000 years

Hot spot

Messina, Italy

IC
E

Aral
Sea

Volcanic eruption

Convergent

Raton

Kamchatka

Shiveluch, Russia Peninsula

Sea of
Bezymyannaya, Russia
Lake
Baikal

Black Sea

Azores

Armenia
El'brus

(18510 ft)5642

NORTH
ATLANTIC
OCEAN

PLATE

Se

Divergent (arrow length is

proportional to plate
motion speed)

Compare the patterns on this tectonics map with

the more general Natural Hazards map seen on
the following plate.
Natural Hazards | Plate 16

20th century earthquake

greater than 6.5 magnitude

L. Erie

COCOS
PLATE

Notable earthquake
of the 20th century

Plate motion

E U R O P E
zmit,
PS
Turkey
AL

Gulf of
St. Lawrence

L. Huron
L. Ontario

Be r mu d a

Michoacan,
Mexico
Santa Mara,
Guatemala

Earthquake

Diffuse plate boundary

deformation zone

P L ATE

L. Superior

Divergent boundary
Convergent boundary
Transform zone

Paricutn,
Mexico

Major tectonic event in

the last 100 years

Plate boundary

L. Michigan

Gu
G ua d a l u p e Ba j a

PL ATE

Landers,
California

PACIF IC

Tectonic feature

North
Sea

Re

Hawaii

San Andreas Fault

San Fernando, California

Northridge, California

Lake
Winnipeg

il

H awai i E m pe ror

Hudson
Bay

N O R TH A ME R I CA N
O

EU RASIAN

Grmsvotn, Iceland
Surtsey, Iceland

NORTH
PACIFIC
OCEAN

CONNECTIONS
Loc
atio
nu
nc e
rta
in

pia
as

Lassen Peak, California

San Francisco, California
Loma Prieta, California

Barents
Sea

Ic e l a n d

Great Slave
Lake

Y e l l o w st o n e

JUAN DE FUCA PLATE

RIN

Mount St. Helens, Washington

TAINS

Cobb

UN
L MO

KodiakBo w i e

URA

Katmai/Novarupta

Great Bear
Lake

Denali Park
Southern Alaska

FIRE
RING OF

GREENLAND

Baffin
Bay

ait
Str

M O U N T A I N S

Bering
Sea

ng
eri

The scale of the thing is otherworldlya jagged

range of outsize mountain peaks, towering three
kilometers (two miles) above the abyssal plains
and stretching shoulder to vertiginous shoulder
along more than 64,380 kilometers (40,000
miles) of seafloor. The global mid-ocean ridge
system is by far the grandest geological feature of
our planet, snaking into every major ocean basin,
and yet it was almost entirely unknown until
the 1950s.
Early seafloor maps, such as those first printed
in National Geographic, revealed a hidden world.
They also helped change fundamentally the way
we see our planet, by providing crucial early proof
for perhaps the most important geological breakthrough of the past century. The theory of plate
tectonics, popularly known as continental drift,
holds that rather than being a stable, planetary
skin, the continents are more like rafts constantly
adrift upon a bed of molten rock. The ocean
ridges are the engines of continental drift, the
seams along which new seafloor is formed by
cooling magma that rises from below, before
spreading outward to push the continents slowly
but surely around the Earths surface. The results
range from immediately spectacular events such
as volcanoes, earthquakes, and geysers to the
slow-motion uplift of mountain chains and volcanic islands. Over hundreds of millions of years,
new ocean crust is formed along the mid-ocean
ridges and old ocean crust is recycled along subduction zones, as the continents are shifted and
resorted across the face of the Earth.

Bo u v e t

SCOTIA
PLATE

A N T A R C T I C

P L A T E

Weddell
Sea
Vinson Massif

(16067 ft)4897

ViSualiZing tectonic proceSSeS

Seafloor Spreading
Adjacent oceanic plates
slowly diverge at the rate of a
few centimeters a year. Along
these boundariessuch as
the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the
East Pacific Risemolten rock
(magma) pours forth to form new
crust (lithosphere).

Subduction

accretion

colliSion

faulting

hot SpotS

When two massive plates collide, the older, colder, denser

oneoften the oceanic plate
meeting a continental platetakes
a dive. Pulled into the interior
of the Earth, it heats up and is
reabsorbed into the mantle. Water
rising from the subducting plate
causes rock above it to melt,
causing a volcanic eruption.

As ocean plates advance on

continental edges or island arcs
and slide under them, seamounts
on the ocean floor are skimmed
off and pile up in submarine
trenches. The buildup can fuse
with continental plates, as most
geologists agree was the case
with Alaska and much of western
North America.

When continental plates meet, the

resulting forces can build impressive mountain ranges. Earths
highest landformsthe Himalaya
and adjacent Tibetan plateaus
were born when the Indian plate
rammed into the Eurasian plate
50 million years ago.

Boundaries at which plates slip

alongside each other are called
transform faults. An example
is Californias San Andreas
fault, which accommodates
the stresses between the
North American and Pacific
plates. Large and sudden
displacementsstrike-slip
movementscan create highmagnitude earthquakes.

A column of magma rising from

deep in the mantle, a hot spot is a
thermal plume that literally burns
a hole in Earths rocky crust. The
result? Volcanoes, geysers, and
new islands. Eruptions occur
at plate boundaries, such as in
Iceland and the Galpagos, as
well as within plates, such as
the volcanoes of Hawaii and the
geysers of Yellowstone.

a fluctuating earth
600 million yearS ago

500 million yearS ago

As part of a long, repeating process,

a supercontinent called Rodinia began
splitting apart 750 million years ago.
Ocean basins opened in the growing
rifts between the pieces. Some fragments collided, pushing up mountains

where glaciers grew and spread

across the globe, twice even covering the Equator. In time the pieces
reunited to cover the center of a new
polar supercontinent, Pannotia.

300 million yearS ago

A chunk of Pannotia broke off and

drifted north to the Equator, leaving
the continent of Gondwana at the
South Pole. The breakaway chunk
then split into three parts, which
would become North America,

northern Europe, and Siberia. Shallow

waters became nurseries for the first
multicellular animals with exoskeletons. This fauna diversified rapidly in a
burst of evolutionary creativity called
the Cambrian explosion.

200 million yearS ag0

Some of todays mountains were

formed before continents assumed
their present shapes. Laurentia
(North America) collided with Baltica
(northern Europe) and later with Avalonia (Britain and New England). The

tremendous pressure of the collisions

caused the northern Appalachians and
the Caledonian Mountains to rise along
the seams of the growing supercontinent, Pangaea.

100 million yearS ago

Pangaea drifted north, and 225 million

years ago the first dinosaurs roamed a
world-continent that stretched almost
from Pole to Pole and nearly encircled
an ocean called Tethys, ancestor
of the Mediterranean. The colliding

plates slowed their movement, ocean

floors sank, and cracks began tearing
North America away from Africa. The
Pacifics predecessor, the immense
Panthalassic Ocean, surrounded the
supercontinent.

50 million yearS ago

Cracks across Pangaea spread into

rifts and began growing into oceans.
The Atlantic opened between Africa
and North America as the Pacific
shrank. New rifts split North America
from Eurasia, and South America tore

away from Africa, opening the South

Atlantic. To the south, India split away
from Africa, with Antarctica and Australia left alone near the South Pole.

After a meteorite impact wiped out

the dinosaurs, drifting continental
fragments began to collide. Africa
pushed into western Eurasia, raising
the Alps. India rammed into Asia,
creating the Himalayan Plateau and

squeezing Southeast Asia aside. Birds

and once tiny mammals grew large
and evolved in their own ways on the
new continents as todays spectacular
mountains began to rise.

OCEAN

OCEAN
China

AFRICA

AFRICA
SOUTH AMERICA

SOUTH
AMERICA

AFRICA

Arabia
India

AUSTRALIA

OC

EA

India

PACIFIC
OCEAN

OCEAN
SOUTH
AMERICA

ASIA

NORTH
ATLANTIC
OCEAN

ATLANTIC
OCEAN

PACIFIC

EUROPE

NORTH
AMERICA

AFRICA

AUSTRALIA

TETHYS
OCEAN
India

ANTARCTICA

AUSTRALIA

AFRICA
SOUTH
AMERICA
INDIAN
OCEAN

SOUTH
ATLANTIC
OCEAN

AUSTRALIA

GONDWANA

Arabia

OCEAN

Wra
n

15
Tectonics.indd 1-2

Baltica
SOUTH AMERICA

PALEOTETHYS
OCEAN

PANTHALASSIC

Baltica

PA N N O T I A

SOUTH AMERICA

China

Cimmeria
T

ASIA

EUROPE

NORTH
AMERICA

China

Siberia

Laurentia

Laurentia and
Baltica

llia

NORTH AMERICA

ANTARCTICA

Siberia

OCEAN

NORTH
AMERICA

ge

Congo

China

PANTHALASSIC

ASIA

AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIA

EUR

Siberia

ANTARCTICA
ANTARCTICA

ANTARCTICA

15

PANTHALASSIC

PANTHALASSIC

5/18/10 10:49:00 AM