The different kinds of lithosphere

 Continental lithosphere (continental crust and upper mantle) -

thick
 Oceanic lithosphere (oceanic crust and upper mantle) - thin
 Volcanic island lithosphere (volcanic arc crust and upper mantle) -
moderately thick
Hotspots - how to make a volcanic island
chain
THE HAWAIIAN VOLCANIC ISLAND CHAIN

HAWAII
Pacific plate moves across the hotspot

HAWAII
HOTSPOT
 The plate moves slowly
over the hotspot

Source of heat deep in the earth

Volcanic island chains and volcanic
island arcs
 Volcanic island arcs form above subduction zones.
 Volcanic island chains develop above a mantle hotspot as the plate
moves across the hotspot.
 Volcanic island arcs are usually arcuate in plan view
 Volcanic island chains are straight lines
The Aleutian Aleu
tian vo l c. arc

volcanic arc
developed above
a subduction
zone. Plat
e mo t
ion

The Hawaiian
volcanic island
chain developed
above a hotspot. Hotspot
The map of the sea floor shows other hotspot
traces
Plate tectonics on a global
scale
 PLATE TECTONICS ON A GLOBAL SCALE

World earthquakes map

 Shallow earthquakes occur at all plate boundaries

 Therefore a map of earthquake epicentres is a map of plate
boundaries
WORLD EARTHQUAKE MAP

http//geology.usgs.gov
 Earthquakes

Plate
boundaries
 World map shows the plates

Notice that most plates are partly ocean and partly continent.
See the Indian-Australian plate for example.
Notice the passive margins on both sides of the Atlantic

And the active margins (trenches and volcanic arcs)

on most margins of the Pacific
 PLATE TECTONICS ON A GLOBAL SCALE

COLLISIONAL BOUNDARIES
Collision zones

 What happens when two continental plates collide?

 The rock making up continental plates is much lighter and denser than
oceanic rock, therefore the plates collide
 Causing the two continental plates to crunch and fold, lifting it up and
leading to the formation of mountains and mountain ranges.
Himalayan Range

 Himalayan Range in SE Asia was formed by the collision of the Indian and
Eurasian Plates
 The process began after the break up of Pangea, when India became an island
continent moving northwards to Asia.
 India collided into Asia about 40-50ma
 Its best known peaks are????
 Since the Indian Plate is continuing northward into Asia the Himalayas
continue to grow higher (5-20mm or 1 inch per year)
 PLATE TECTONICS ON A GLOBAL SCALE

ALPS HIMALAYAS NEW GUINEA HIGHLANDS

The great mountain ranges formed by collision

Collision between continent and

continent
Collision between continent and volcanic arc (1)
1. Sediments were Seds
1
deposited on the Aust continent
margin of the mantle
Aust. continent

Plates converging
2. The continent
2 Volcanic island arc
collided with a
volcanic island arc
and the sediments Aust continent
were subducted
(carried down into mantle
Sediments carried down
the mantle) into the mantle
Collision between continent and volcanic arc (2)
3. The continental crust,
1 being 35 km thick and
having low density, could not be subducted and so
a collision developed mantle

Volcanic island arc

2
Aust continent

Sediments carried down mantle

into the mantle
Collision between continent and volcanic arc (3)
After collision, because the metamorphic rocks were
less dense than the mantle they slowly rose to the
earth’s surface, to form the Owen Stanley Range.
Metamorphosed sediments

crust

mantle

Buoyant uplift

This was a buoyant effect, in the same way that a ball

held under water will bob up to the surface when it is
released.
 Continent - volcanic arc collision

The metamorphic rocks of the Owen

Stanley Range formed in this way, when
sediments on the edge of the Australian
continent were carried down into the
mantle.
Then re-emerged by buoyant uplift.
 PLATE TECTONICS ON A GLOBAL SCALE

SPREADING RIDGE AND

TRANSFORMS
Iceland is the only place we
can see a spreading ridge,
without getting wet. The Mid-
Atlantic Ridge stands above
sea level at Iceland.
The Red Sea is a new sea
formed by a new spreading
ridge.

The East African rift valleys tried

to become a new ocean but
failed.

Transform faults offset the

spreading ridge.

A transform plate boundary runs

through the Dead Sea valley
and along the Jordan River.
Photograph from the space shuttle shows the
Red Sea spreading ridge and the transform that
runs through the Gulf of Aqaba and the Dead Sea
Pacific Plate
boundary in North
America.

The San Andreas

fault is a transform
that links two
segments of
spreading ridge.

The Sea of Cortez

is opening by sea
floor spreading.
 PLATE TECTONICS ON A GLOBAL SCALE

San Andreas Fault

 PNG-SOLOMONS
PLATE BOUNDARIES
Earthquakes mapped by depth
Red shallow, green intermediate, blue deep
 Earthquakes

Earthquakes occur
at plate boundaries
PNG plate boundaries
The valley of the
Kamdaru and
Weitin Rivers
coincides with a
transform fault.
[This fault moved
5 m on 16.11.00
 Summary of plate tectonics (1)
 The surface of the earth comprises a number of plates of
lithosphere.
 The plates move around, sometimes bumping into each other
to form trenches and mountains.
 And sometimes moving away from each other, in which case
new ocean crust is formed by volcanic activity at ‘sea floor
spreading ridges’, to fill the gap left behind.
 Where plates converge, one may dive under the other (it may
be subducted). The result is a deep sea trench (where it dives
down) and a chain of volcanoes above the subducted slab.
 Where plates converge, if both have thick crust then neither
can be subducted. The result is a collision, and the
development of mountain ranges.
 Subduction
Fore-arc Basin, Back-arc Basins & Tectonic Inversion
 Island Arcs
 Back-arc basins, Fore-arc Basins
 The Ring of Fire
 Hot Spots
 Faults
 Earthquakes
 Mantle Plumes
Fore-arc Basin

 A fore-arc is the region between an oceanic trench and the associated

volcanic arc.
 Although the extensive fore-arc region of many island arcs was thought to be
composed of scrapped-off sediments, drilling has not substantiated this.
 Fore-arc basins can form at both accretionary margins and erosive margins
 Accretionary
Margin

Erosive
Margin
Trenches: situated on the downbent oceanic lithosphere
Slope basins: perched on the accretionary subduction
complex
Forearc basins: located between the arc and the
subduction complex
Backarc basins: found on the landward side of the arc.
Basement of forearc basins

 Oceanic crust (or ophiolite)

 Thinned continental crust
 Subduction complex
 Extension of arc massif

Basements for many ancient forearc

basins are commonly composed of
ophiolite.
 Ophiolite complex:
Sequence of rock types,
 consisting of deep-sea sediments (e.g. red clay,
 chert, etc) lying above basaltic pillow lavas and
 dykes (dolerite or diabase), gabbro, and
 peridotite.
Examples

 Central Andean Forearc

 Banda Forearc
 Savu-Wetar Forearc
 Luzon arc-forearc
 Tohoku Forearc
 Between Western Cordillera and Peru-Chile Trench
Back-arc Basins

 Submarine basins associated with island arcs and subduction zones

 Where are they found? At some convergent plate boundaries
 Most occur as a result of oceanic trench rollback and the collapse of the edge
of the continent.
 The arc crust is under extension/rifting
 Where are active back-arc basins found? Marianas, Tonga-Kermadec, S.Scotia,
Manus, N.Fiji and Tyrrhenian seas.
 Not all subduction zones have back-arc basins!!
 Extinct basins: Parece Vela-Shikoku Basin, Sea of Japan and Kurile Basin
Tectonic Inversion

 The term "inversion" simply refers to a relatively low-lying area is uplifted — the rock sequence
itself is not normally inverted
 inversion or basin inversion relates to the relative uplift of a sedimentary basin or similar
structure as a result of crustal shortening
 But, “inversion” also relates to individual faults, where an extensional fault is reactivated in the
opposite direction to original movement.
 Many inversion structures are caused by the direct reactivation of pre-existing extensional
faults.
 deeper parts of the fault are reactivated and the shortening is accommodated over a much
broader area in the shallow part of the section
 Reactivation depends on the dip of the existing fault plane