Origin of the Earth

& Internal Structure

of the Earth
 Course Information

Aims:
•To understand of Origin of Earth

•To understand the internal structure of the Earth

•To understand the origin of Ocean and Continents and the internal
processes under the Earth
 Course Information

Contents:
• Our Solar system and its different part
• Origin of the Universe
• Origin of the Solar System
• Birth of the Solar System
• Birth of our Earth
• Formation of the Core
• The Creation of Life
• Chemical Composition of the Earth
• Mechanisms of Plate Tectonics:
• Continental Rifting
• Sea-floor Spreading
 
 Our Earth is a part of the Solar system Solar system is a part of the Universe

Interesting things about the Solar System

 Part of a our Galaxy- Milky way  Most of the mass of the Solar
System is concentrated in the
sun
Solar System consists of the
Sun and its planetary system
of 8 planets, their moons, and
other non-stellar objects
(astronomical object in direct
orbit around the Sun that is
neither a dominant planet or
comet)
All 8 planets can be seen with
a small telescope
The planets and sun each have
a somewhat different density
suggesting different time
and/or
temperatures of origin
Jupiter is more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined (the mass of
Jupiter is 318 times that of Earth)
Saturn is the least dense of the
planets; specific gravity (0.7)
less than that of water
 All planets spin on an axis nearly
erpendicular to the plane of the
ecliptic but Uranus' axis is almost
parallel to the ecliptic
 Origin of the Universe
 The Universe began (why began?) about 14.4 billion years (Ba)
 ago
The BIG BANG THEORY states that, in the beginning, our
Universe was all one place
 All of its matter and energy were squished into an infinitely small
point, a singularity
Then it “exploded”
 The tremendous amount of material blown out by the explosion
eventually formed the stars and galaxies
 After about 10 B, our Solar system began to form
 Origin of the Solar System
 We know how the Earth and Solar System are
today… and this allows us to work backwards
and determine how the Earth and Solar System

 were formed
Additionally we can out into the Universe — for
clues on how stars & planets are currently
being
formed
The Nebular Hypothesis
In cosmogony, the Nebular Hypothesis is the currently accepted argument how a Solar
System can form
 The Nebular Hypothesis

 The Solar System started out as a large nebular

cloud (gas cloud) and then began to condense

 Most of the mass in the center, there was

turbulence
in outer parts

 The turbulent eddies collect dust and gases

 Small chunks grow from the condensation of these

materials and collide, eventually becoming large
aggregates of gas and solid chunks

 Cloud would have been 30-40 light years across

 Mass of cloud would have been 2 -10 times the

present Solar System mass
  Pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope
show newborn stars emerging from dense,
compact pockets of interstellar gas called
evaporating gaseous globules
This undated NASA image taken by the Hubble
Space Telescope shows spiral galaxy Messier 101

Expanding remnant of a star's supernova

explosion.
Located at a distance of about 6,500 light-years
from Earth
The nebula has a diameter of 11 ly and expands at a
rate of ~ 1,500 km/s
It was found to correspond to a bright supernova
recorded by Chinese and Arab astronomers in
1054
Crab Nebula taken by Hubble Space Telescope
 This monstrous object is actually a pillar
of gas and dust - called the Cone Nebula
because of its conical shape in ground-
based images
This giant pillar resides in a turbulent star-
forming region
This image shows the upper 2.5 light-years
of the nebula, a height that equals 23
million round trips to the moon
Taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in April’02
The entire nebula is 7 light years in length

 Gravitational and magnetic attraction causes the

mass
of gas and dust to contract and it begins to rotate
 The dust and matter slowly falls
towards the center
 The nebular theory of the origin of the solar system has been verified by images of circumstellar
disks around very young stars
 Formation of a Prostar
As a result of contraction and rotation, a flat, rapidly
rotating disk forms with a matter concentrated at the
center that later becomes Proto-Sun (protostar)

The multi-coloured area shows a dust disk

surrounding a new born star …. This process is still
going and every second a new star born

The red-orange area at the center represents the brightest region, which contains the young
star
It is surrounded by the cooler, dusty disk, which appears as yellow, green and blue
The diameter of the disk is about 20 times larger than our entire Solar System

Proto sun core gets to about 10 million degrees kelvin

After sufficient mass and density was achieved in the Sun and its temperature rose to 1 million
C
The pressures and densities of hydrogen in the center ENERGY

of the collapsed nebula become great enough and Nuclear

Fusion starts at the center of the new star, converting
hydrogen to helium and releasing lots of heat
Just as our sun began to do since origin - and continues to do, to the great pleasure of us here
on E
We have already formed the Sun
Now, let's make the planets
The Sun

Composition of the Sun

Abundance of Light Elements
Rarity of Lithium, Beryllium, Boron
 Birth of the Solar System
About 4.6 billion years ago, the
Sun and the planets formed
The enveloping disk of gas and
dust
forms grains that collide and
clump
together into small chunks or
Possibly there was a supernova
Planetesimals
(explosion of a star) nearby to get
things started
Gravitational forces allow the terrestrial planets to accumulate and compact solid matter
(including light and heavy atoms) by multiple collisions and accretion of Planetesimals
Once particles join into larger units, their gravity attracts more particles, forming larger
objects
Eventually planet-sized objects appear
Planets made of same material as Sun, minus elements that remain mostly in gases
Solar radiation blew gases (primarily H and He) from inner
planets

Inner Rocky Planets

(M, V, E, M): iron
and magnesium
silicates

These gases were

collected and condensed
into the gas giants (J, S,
U, N)

Left-over debris from comets and asteroids

We find this pattern in a certain class of

meteorites
 Birth of our Earth
When planets got bigger, gravity got
stronger, and planets ‘gather up’
surrounding debris – and started to spin on
their axis due to collision of the debris

Meteorites give us access to debries leftover

from the supernova of the Solar System
– We can date meteorites using radioactive
– isotopes
They also give us the information about the
composition of the Planetesimals

About 4.5-4.56 BYA, Proto-Earth formed from

planetesimals
 Early Earth Hot or Cold ?
Up to 1940: Earth is hot inside, 1940-1970: Earth need not 1970-now: Earth did form hot
so must have formed hot have formed hot after all
Initial accretion of the Earth was cool
Heat originated from collision (transfer of
kinetic energy into heat, radioactive decay
(U, Th and K) and compression

Any molten object of > 500 km in size has

sufficient gravity to cause gravitational The Heating, Cooling and Coalescing of the Earth
separation of light and heavy elements thus
producing a differentiated body

Heavy elements (nickel and Iron) migrated to

center to form core by gravity as material became
molten

Lighter material floated to the top to form crust,

and material of intermediate density formed the
mantle
Earth began to cool, but the inside continues to be
heated by radioactive decay
Earth no longer has these craters due to weathering
and movements of the Earth’s crust
 Bombardment from Space

For the 1st half Ba of its existence, the surface of the E was repeatedly pulverized by asteroids
and comets of all sizes

One of these collisions formed the Moon

 Formation of the Moon
The Giant Impact Hypothesis predicts that ~ 50
Ma after the initial creation of the E, a planet of ~
size of Mars collided with the E

This idea was 1st proposed ~ 30 yrs ago, but it long

time to calculate by modern high-speed computers
to prove the feasibility
This collision had to be very spectacular !!!

A considerable amount of
material was blown off into
the space, but most fell back
onto the E

Part of the
material from the
collision
remained in orbit
around the E

By the process collision and accretion, this The early Moon orbited very close to the E
orbiting material united into the Moon
 Formation of the Core
~ 100 Ma after the initial accretion, temperatures at depths of
400 - 800 km bellow the E’s surface reach the melting point of
iron
In a process called Global Chemical Differential, the heavier
elements including melted iron, began to sink down into the
core of the E, while the lighter elements such as Oxygen and
silica floated up towards the surface

The Global Chemical Differential was

completed by ~ 4.3 Ba ago and the Earth had
developed in an inner and outer core, a
mantle and a crust
Chemical composition of the Earth
Each of the major layers has distinctive
chemical composition, with the crust being
quite different from the E as a whole
 The First Billion Years

Right after its creation, the E is thought with a

thin atmosphere composed primarily of He and H
gas
The E’s gravity could not hold these light gases
and they easily escaped into outer space

Today, H and He are very rare in our atmosphere

For the next several hundred Ma, volcanic out

gassing began to create a thicker atmosphere
composed of a wide variety of gases

The Earth's surface was originally molten, as it

cooled the volcanoes belched out massive amounts
of CO2, STEAM, AMMONIA and CH4

The gases that were released were similar to gases

of modern volcanic eruptions
There is controversies that water might have come
from the space but it is now well established that
the STEAM/vapor escaping from the E’s interior
via countless volcanic eruptions then condensed
and produced shallow seas (this took 100s of Ma)

The cooling down of the primordial world to the

point where the out-gassed volatile components
were held in an atmosphere of sufficient pressure
for the stabilization and retention of liquid water

There was NO OXYGEN

 Supporting evidence includes the following facts
 Enough water comes out of Volcanoes to have filled the ocean basins 20 time
during the history of the E

The earliest evidence of surface water on E, dates back ~ 3.8 Ba

A Billion Year Old Earth

By 3.5 Ba ago, when the E was a Ba old, it had a thick

atmosphere composed of CO2, Methane, water vapor
and other volcanic gases
By human standards
this early atmosphere
was very poisonous

It contained almost no oxygen as we require

(today it is ~ 21%)

By 3.5 Ba ago, the E also had no extensive oceans

and seas of salt water, which contain many
dissolved elements such as Fe
But most important, by 3.5 Ba Evidence - bacteria flourishing 3.5 Ba ago
ago, there was life on the E life got under way about 1000 Ma after the Earth
Life existed in the shallow oceans close to thermal vents
These vents - source of heat and minerals

These 3.5 Ba old fossilized algae

mats, which are called Stromatolites,
are considered to be the earliest
known life on Earth
They are found in Glacier National Park, Western Australia
Sromatolites (a structure) formed in shallow seas or lagoons The First Continent on Earth
when millions of Cyanobacteria (a primitive type of bacteria)
live together in a colony

By 2.5 Ba ago, the first continent had been formed

 The Creation of Life
How to create cyanobacteria ?

The composition of the early atmosphere and oceans were conductive to the creation of
primitive amino acids which are the building blocks of protein molecules as
demonstrated
in the next slide
 Miller-Urey Experiment

50 years ago, Stanley Miller, a

graduate student working with
Cosmologist Halord Urey, was
able to create amino acids by
exposing a gas that simulated the
early E atmosphere to UV
Radiation and water
 Oxygen in the Atmosphere

The ability of cyanobacteria to perform

oxygenic photosynthesis is thought to have
converted the early E atmosphere into a
oxidizing one

Which dramatically changed the life forms on

E and provoked an explosion of biodiversity

By ~ 1 Ba ago, the E had developed an

atmosphere i.e., very similar to today’s
atmosphere (O2 and N2)
How do we know that there was no O2 in the
early E atmosphere ?
The strongest evidence is geological
Mineral deposits

Iron is almost completely insoluble in water when free oxygen is present, but is highly
soluble when free oxygen is not present

All over the world, we find large deposits of iron oxide that are all just about the same age
After photosynthetic algae evolved and became abundant
All that iron fell out of solution and settled to the bottom of all the oceans as iron oxide
when free oxygen became available on the Earth's surface
These so called banded iron formations are the source of almost all our iron ore, so they
are very well studied
Oxygen oixides native Fe and created minerals e.g. hematite (Fe 2O3)

Simply put water and oxygen you can find the rust which is nothing but Fe 2O3
Banded Iron Formation (BIFs) are a distinctive type of rock often found in primordial
sedimentary rocks
It consists of repeated layers of iron oxides (hematite) alternating with bands of iron
poor
silica rich shales or cherts
BIFs are primarily found in very old sedimentary rock ranging from ~3 to 1.8 Ba in age
It is hypothesized that the banded Fe layers were formed in sea water as the result of
free O2 released by photosynthetic cyanobacteria

Combining with dissolved iron in oceans to form insoluble Fe oxides, which precipitated
out forming a thin layer on the seafloor
"Great Oxidation Event" (GOE), nearly 2.3 billion years ago, when oxygen
made any measurable dent in the atmosphere, stimulating the evolution of air-
breathing organisms and, ultimately, complex life as we know it today.
 Chemical Composition of the Earth
The internal structure of the earth cannot directly be observed (the deepest ever
drilled into the earth was 12km, only a scratch on the surface)
Studies regarding the interior of the earth depend mostly on the indirect
observations
They depend on the inferences made by the seismic studies, meteorites and to some
extent on the surface rocks
In the fig. below, the left diagram shows the variation of seismic wave velocity with
depth
The velocity is not constant anywhere except at the outer core for S-wave where it
goes to 0 km/s
This variation in the speed of P-
and S- waves indicates that the
interior is not made up of the same
stuff everywhere

An increase in the wave

velocity indicates denser
material and decrease
indicates a
comparatively rarer
material
Seismic studies have led to many significant discoveries about the earth and its make-
up
They revealed that the earth has several distinct layers
These layers are distinguished by their physical and chemical properties like
thickness, depth, density, temperature and metallic content

The earth is divided into eight main layers: 1. Inner core, 2. Outer core, 3. D”, 4. Lower
mantle, 5. Transition region, 6. Upper mantle, 7. Oceanic crust and 8.continental crust
The velocity of P-wave gradually increases but suddenly drops at the outer core
 Inner Core
Depth: 6378 - 5150 km with the radius of ~ 1,220 km

The inner core is made of iron and nickel (Ni-

Fe or Nife) in a solid state; also contains enough
gold, platinum and other Siderophile elements

Siderophile elements: high-density transition metals

which tend to sink into the core because they
dissolve
readily in iron either as solid solutions or in the
molten state)
It is suspended in the molten outer core

It is believed to have solidified as a result of pressure-freezing which happens to most

liquids under extreme pressure

The Earth's inner core is slowly growing (1 mm/yr) as the liquid outer core at the
boundary
with the inner core cools and solidifies due to the gradual cooling of the Earth's interior
(about 100 degrees Celsius per billion years)
To be about the same temperature as the surface of the Sun: approximately 5700 K
(5430 °C)
Inner core rotates and research published in Science in
2005 and more recently in the February 2011 issue of
Nature Geoscience confirms that Earth’s inner core
does indeed rotate faster than the rest of the planet

Outer Core

Depth: 5,150 – 2,890 km with the radius of ~

2,266 km
Made of mainly iron and nickel, temperature of the
outer core ranges from 4400 °C in the outer regions to
6100 °C near the inner core
It is a hot electrically conducting liquid
This conductive layer combined with earth’s
rotation causes a dynamo effect that maintains a
system of electrical currents creating the earth’s
magnetic field
This layer is not as dense as pure molten iron
indicating the presence of lighter elements

Scientists suspect that about 10% of the layer is

composed of sulphur and oxygen because these
elements are abundant in the cosmos and dissolve
readily in molten iron
 Earth's Core and the Geodynamo
The Earth's magnetic field is mostly caused by
electric currents in the liquid outer core, which is
composed of highly conductive molten Fe and Ni

Convection of liquid metals in the outer core

creates the Earth's magnetic field

This magnetic field extends outward from the

Earth for several thousand kilometers, and creates
a protective bubble around the Earth that deflects
the solar wind

Without this field, a larger proportion of the solar

wind would directly strike the Earth's atmosphere

The presumed effect would be to strip the Earth's

atmosphere away slowly

This is hypothesized to have happened to the

Martian atmosphere, rendering the planet
effectively lifeless
 D” Layer

Depth: 2,890 – 2,700 km

This layer is 200 to 300 km thick

It is often identified as part of the lower mantle

But a strong change of density characterizes

the core-mantle interface, it looks very
abrupt so that this boundary acts as a quite
perfect reflector for the seismic waves

But seismic evidence suggests the layer might

differ chemically from the lower mantle lying
above it
Seismologically, this part is known as the Gutenberg Discontinuity
 Lower Mantle
Depth: 2,700 – 650 km

The lower mantle is composed of mainly silicon,

magnesium and oxygen

It probably also contains some iron, calcium and

aluminum

Scientists make these deductions by assuming the

earth has a similar abundance and proportion of
cosmic elements as found in the sun and the
primitive meteorites

The high temperatures within the mantle cause

the silicate material to be sufficiently ductile that
it can flow on very long timescales

Because of the temperature difference between the Earth's surface and outer core and
the ability of the crystalline rocks at high pressure and temperature to undergo slow,
creeping, viscous-like deformation over millions of years, there is a convective
material circulation in the mantle
 Above the lower mantle
there is a transition
between Upper part of
the Mantle & Crust – two
distinct layers are there
namely Asthenosphere
and Lithosphere

Asthenosphere
From Greek asthenēs 'weak' + sphere

The upper mantle of the E; highly viscous,

mechanically weak and ductilely-deforming region
due to temperature and pressure

Covers the depths between 100 and 200 km but perhaps extending as deep as 700 km

It flows like a convection current, radiating heat outward from the E's interior

Moving at rates of deformation measured in cm/yr over lineal distances eventually

measuring thousands of kilometers
 This figure is a snapshot of
one time-step in a model of
mantle convection. Colors
closer to red are hot areas
and colors closer
to blue are cold areas.

The flowing asthenosphere carries the lithosphere of the Earth, including the continents
and oceans, on its back.
 Lithosphere

Comes from the greek word, lithos, (rock,

and the word, sphere)
It comprises the crust and the uppermost mantle

Constitute the hard and rigid outer layer of the E

Lithosphere remains rigid for very long periods of

geologic time in which it deforms elastically and
through brittle failure

Oceanic lithosphere:
Associated with Oceanic crust and exists in the ocean basins
Oceanic lithosphere is typically about 50–100 km thick
The major part of the earth’s crust was made through volcanic activity

The density of these rocks is ~3.0 g/cm3

Continental lithosphere:
Associated with Continental crust
Continental lithosphere has a range in thickness from about 40 km to perhaps 200 km
At the base of the crust is the Mehorovicic discontinuity

Crust
Uppermost layer of the Earth, is not always of same thickness

Crust under the oceans is only about 5 km thick

while continental crust can be up to 65 km thick
Ocean crust is made of denser minerals than
continental crust

It is composed of a great variety of

igneous, metamorphic, and
sedimentary rocks
 Temperature, Pressure & Density
The earth is a sphere with a radius of 6378 km

The temperature, pressure and density increase with depth as can be seen from the
figure below
The temperature at the core is believed to be an incredible 5000-6000 0 C

The pressure is around

7500 kbar

The density is around

13.5
 The P-wave velocities, density and thickness of different layers

Thickness P-wave velocity

Layer Density (g/cm³ )
(km) (km/sec)
Continental crust avg. 35 2.6 - 2.8 6
Oceanic crust 5 - 10 3.0 - 3.5 7
Mohorovicic discontinuity (Moho)
Mantle 2885 4.5 - 10 8 – 12
Gutenberg discontinuity
Core (average) 3470 10.7 or 12 -
Outer core
2250 - 8 – 10
(liquid)
Inner core (solid) 1220 13.5 11 – 12
 Plates
The lithospheric outer shell of Earth is not one continuous piece but is broken, like a
slightly cracked eggshell, into about a dozen major separate rigid blocks, or plates
There are two types of plates, oceanic and continental; Oceanic plates are heavier
than continental plates

There are 12 major plates in the Earth

The Pacific, N American, S American,
Eurasian, Australian-Indian, African
and the Antarctictic are the 7 major
plates

The Philippine, Juan de Fuca, Nazca,

Cocos, Caribbean, Arabian and Scotia
are the minor plates
They differ in size, direction of motion
and the type of crustal rocks present
in the plate
Some plates such as the N American
Plate carry continents and adjoining
pieces of the ocean floor
Others such as the Pacific Plate, in
contrast, are completely covered by
oceans and are made of oceanic crust
The speed of movement is estimated at
1 to 10 cm per year
Most of the earth’s seismic activity
occurs at the plate boundaries as they
interact
The plates are interconnected at global
scale and the activity of one plate can
profoundly change the behaviour of
the other plates
 Plates Tectonics
Tectonics is concerned with the movements in the earth and the forces that produce
movement
A scientific theory that describes the large-scale motions of E's lithosphere
The model builds on the concepts of Continental Drift, developed during the first
decades of the 20th century
This theory explains the movement of the plates and also the cause of the earthquakes,
volcanoes, oceanic trenches, island arcs and many other geologic phenomena
Where plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of boundary:
Convergent, Divergent, and Transform

How Plates Move ?

Mechanisms of Plate Tectonics:
1 Ridge-Push 2 Slab Pull

Mantle Drag
3
 Convective flow of mantle

It is believed that the force for the movement of

the plates is the convection currents
Heat generated from the radioactive decay of
elements deep in the interior of the earth is the
source for convection currents in the
asthenosphere
Convection currents in the asthenosphere transfer
heat to the surface, where plumes of less dense
magma break apart the plates at the spreading
centers creating divergent plates
These plates float on the hot ductile mantle
(asthenosphere) like slabs of ice on a pond

Much of the earth’s history is the result of plates rifting into pieces to form new
ocean basins and converging back together to form mountains and giant continents

The plates and their relationships are described by the 3 tectonic regimes: Cratons and
Ocean Basins, Hot Spots and Plate Boundaries (divergent boundaries, ocean basins,
convergent boundaries, and transform boundaries)
 The 3 tectonic regimes are the individual components that interact in plate tectonic theory
Cratons (stable continents):     
An old and stable part of the continental lithosphere
Having often survived cycles of merging and rifting
of continents, cratons are generally found in the
interiors of tectonic plates
Those portions of the earth most of us live on
Modern cratons are, for example, the interior of
North America east of the Rocky Mountains and west
of the Appalachian mountains (e.g. the mid west), and
central and western Australia.
Ocean Basins:
Not everything that is below sea level is ocean
basin, but ocean basins are always below sea
level you see a picture of the earth from
When
space, most of that area underwater is ocean
basin
Ocean basins compose the largest surface area
on Earth
Unlike continents, ocean basins form and disappear quickly; the oldest we have is only about 150
Ma old (compared to the oldest continent at 3.9 Ba)
 Plate Boundaries
Plates interact in three ways. They diverge, converge and slide past each other
These three plate interactions form three types of boundaries and they are:

1. Convergent boundaries – Where one 2. Divergent boundaries – Mid-oceanic spreading

lithosphere dives under another in a process ridges that generate new oceanic crust. Because
called subduction. These are “compressional” the plates are pulling apart, these are
boundaries. These are destructive plate “extensional” boundaries. These are constructive
margins plate margins

3. Transform
boundaries –
Where plates slide
horizontally past
each other along
giant faults.
California’s San
Andreas Fault is
the best known
transform plate
boundary. These
are conservative
margins
 Convergent Plate boundary
Continental vs. Oceanic Plate Convergence
In a contest between a dense oceanic plate
and a less dense, buoyant continental plate,
guess which one will sink?
The dense, leading edge of the oceanic
plate actually pulls the rest of the plate
into the flowing asthenosphere and a
Subduction Zone is born!

Where the two plates intersect, a deep

trench forms

The oceanic plate sinks before it completely melts,

but remains solid far beyond depths of 100 km
beneath the earth's surface

When the subducting oceanic plate sinks deeper

than 100 km, huge temperature and pressure
increases make the plate ‘sweat‘

The uncomfortable conditions force minerals in the

subducting plate to release trapped water and
other gasses
The gaseous sweat works its way
upward, causing a chain of
chemical reactions that melt the
mantle above the subducting plate

This hot, freshly melted liquid rock

(magma) makes its way toward the
surface

Most of the molten rock cools and solidifies in huge

sponge-like magma chambers far below the E's
surface
Some molten rock may break through the E's
surface, instantly releasing the huge pressure built
up in the gas-rich magma chambers below

Gasses, lava and ash explode out from the breached

surface. Over time, layer upon layer of erupting lava
and ash build volcanic mountain ranges

Large intrusive rock bodies that form the backbones of great mountain ranges such as the Sierra
Nevada form by this process
Oceanic vs. oceanic plate convergence

In a contest between a dense oceanic plate

and a less dense, buoyant continental plate,
you know that it’s the dense oceanic plate
that sinks
What happens when two dense oceanic
plates collide?
Once again, density is the key!
Little by little, as new molten rock erupts at the mid-
ocean ridge, the newly created oceanic plate moves
away from the ridge where it was created

The farther the plate gets from the ridge that

created it, the colder and denser ('heavier') it gets

When two oceanic plates collide, the plate that is

older, therefore colder and denser, is the one that
will sink
The rest of the story is a lot like the continental vs.
oceanic plate collision we described above

Once again, a subduction zone forms and a curved

volcanic mountain chain forms above the
subducting plate
Of course, this time the volcanoes rise out
of the ocean, so we call these volcanic
mountain chains island arcs

Volcanoes of the Eastern Caribbean

Island Arc is an excellent example of a
very volcanically-active island arc
Lesser Antilles Subduction Zone, where
oceanic crust of the South American
Plate is being subducted under the
Caribbean Plate
 Nazca Plate

The Caribbean Plate lies in a complex area with two major plates and two minor plates bordering
it
The plate includes oceanic and continental Crust
The Caribbean Sea covers most of the plate with Central America and volcanic islands covering the
rest
The edges of the plate have intense seismic activity, frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions
The area also contains seventeen active and dangerous volcanoes
2 notorious volcanoes in the area are Soufriere Hills on Montserrat and Mount Pelee on Martinique
The plate is bounded by 2 active subduction zones which have two associated active trenches and volcanic
arcs, the Lesser Antilles (to the E) and the Central American  (to the W) trenches/arcs, and by 2 complex
transform-trascurrent fault zones, the Motagua-Polochic-Swan-Bartlett/Oriente to the N, and the
northern S. American fault system to the S, where subduction of the Caribbean plate below S. America is
active at present
Continental vs. Continental Plate
Convergence
By this time, you
understand enough about
plates to guess
that when the massive bulk
of two buoyant continental
plates collide there is bound
to be trouble!
When two huge masses of
continental lithosphere
meet head-on, neither
one can sink because
both plates are too
buoyant

It is here that the highest mountains in the world

grow
At these boundaries solid rock is crumpled and
faulted

Huge slivers of rock, many kilometers wide are thrust

on top of one another, forming a towering mountain
range
The Himalayan mountain range provides a
spectacular example of cont, vs. cont.
collision

The pressure here is so great that an

enormous piece of Asia is being wedged
sideways, slipping out of the way like a
watermelon seed squeezed between your
fingers
 Divergent Plate boundary

Most are located along the crests of oceanic

ridges called “Mid Oceanic Ridge” and can
be thought of as constructive plate margins

Some also located in the continent called

“Continental Rifting”

Mid oceanic ridges or Continental

rifts are the centers of divergence or
spreading apart of two plates

As molten rock material moving upward

(asthenosphere) by convection reaches the
surface along these ridges, the entire oceanic
lithosphere moves away from the spreading
center

In this way new ocean floor constantly

forms and slides away from either side of
the ridge as solid plates of the lithosphere
Longest topographic feature on the E’s surface representing 20% of E’s surface with the width of 1000-4000 km

Ridges are often perpendicular to the motion between the two plates on each side
Creating new sea floor !!! Typical spreading rate ~ 5 cm /yr
No ocean floor is older than the Jurassic (150 Ma) !!!
This process is responsible for the phenomenon known as “Seafloor Spreading”
Example of Continental Rifting Iceland: An example of continental rifting
The divergent zone splits the Iceland into two parts

A rift between the

N. American (right)
and Eurasian (left)
continental plates in
Iceland
 Interestingly both theory of Continental Drifting and Sea Floor Spreading
came well before Plate Tectonics theory
Continental Drift – Evidences and Finding

Alfred Wegener
First proposed his continental drift hypothesis in 1915
Published The Origin of Continents and Oceans

Continental drift hypothesis

Continents "drifted" to present positions

Evidence used in support of continental drift

hypothesis
Fit of the continents
Fossil evidence
Rock type and structural similarities
Similarities in rock age
Paleoclimatic evidence/ Glacial evidence
Paleomagneitc evidence
 Early Observations

Leonardo da Vinci and Francis Bacon

wondered about the possibility of the
American and African continents
having broken apart, based on their
shapes

Even if we try … we can

roughly juxtapose all the
land parts of the world into
a single land mass

Wegener’s matching of
mountain ranges on
different continents
 Fossil Record
The same kinds of fossils are
found from areas known to be
adjacent to one another in the
past
The fossil record had revealed
that the geology and
paleontology match on opposite
sides of the Atlantic Ocean

In fact, there are matching fossil

records that span across all of
the continents

Without plate tectonics, this is

hard to explain

Fossils of the same types of ancient amphibians,

arthropods and ferns are found in South
America, Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica

Sometimes the descendants of these organisms

can be identified and show unmistakable
similarity to each other, even though they now
inhabit very different regions and climates
 Similarities in rock age, rock type
and structural similarities

Even before geochronology, the relative

framework of rock ages showed strong
correlation across the Atlantic, as did
mountain ranges of similar age
 Glacial
Evidence
Large ice masses carve grooves in the rocks over which flow

Such masses tend to flow outward (generally downhill) from a central locality
Paleomagnetism Earth’s magnetic field
A hot magma is not magnetic

As a magma cools and solidifies, the iron-bearing minerals

(such as ferromagnesian silicates) crystallize
Eventually, the minerals cool below the Curie temperature
and the iron-bearing minerals become magnetic
Like tiny compass needles, these magnetic minerals align
themselves parallel to the lines of force of the Earth’s magnetic
field
This remnant magnetism, which is also called Paleomagnetism,
points to the north pole like a sign post
Rocks that were formed at different places on the Earth's
surface have different magnetizations

Using this information, when rock

layers were uncovered with a
magnetization that did not agree with
it's position on the Earth

In fact, with the help of the crystallized

magnetic minerals we can draw the
movement of the continents over long
geologic time
Sea Floor Spreading –Evidence and Finding

Harry Hess combined his observations with the

earlier ideas of Wegener and the mechanism of
Holmes into the concept of sea floor spreading,
which lead to plate tectonics.

Paleomagnetism on the Sea Floor

In the 1950s, the Atlantic Ocean

seafloor was found to consist of
alternating stripes of normal and
reversely magnetized rocks
The maps showed parallel
magnetic ‘stripes’ that were
perfectly symmetrical across the
ridge axis
Colored stripes represent rocks with present-day magnetic
orientations (‘normal polarity’), grey represents rocks with
reversed polarity

An amazing discovery was made when the magnetic profile of

the sea floor around the Mid-Atlantic Ridge was mapped
 Vine and Matthews
interpreted the magnetic
stripes as products of steady
creation of new ocean crust
over geologic time,
supporting the hypothesis of
Hess.
 Ages of Sediment and Rocks

In the early 1960s, massive programs for drilling into

the seafloor began

Extracted cores of seafloor showed that sediments are

thicker on top of seafloor basalt near the continents
while MOR sediments are thin

Cores of both sediments found that near the

continents the oldest sediments are at the bottom and
young sediments are at the top

MOR sediments are all of recent age – When the ages of rocks are measured, the continental rocks
are billions of years old, while seafloor rocks are less than 200 million years of age

Rocks of the oceanic crust increase in age as their location extends from the MOR, and at the
MOR they are new.
 History of Continental Rifting
Present-day continents were the fragmented pieces of preexisting larger landmasses(“Supercontinent")

The diagrams below show the break-up of the supercontinent Pangaea (meaning "all lands" in Greek), which
figured prominently in the theory of continental drift

Pangea broke up into two

smaller super continents
separated by the Tethys Sea

The creation of Pangea meant that only one large

continent existed on the Earth balanced by one large
ocean called Panthelessa (all seas)
Beginning 230 my ago, the present Atlantic Ocean
formed and began spreading

Pangea broke apart completely and the continental

fragments are now scattering across the globe
 Before Pangea, another super continent called Rodinia existed between 1.2 Ba and 750 Ma ago

There is growing evidence that even older supercontinents viz., Vaalbara (~ 3.1 Ba ago),
Kenorland (~ 2.7 Ba ago) and Columbia (during a period of 1.8 to 1.5 Ba) predated Rodinia early in
Earth’s history

Vaalbara
 In the Triassic Period, Pangea began to break up again

Heat loss from the mantle through the thin ocean floor is more rapid than through the thick
continental crust, which acts as a blanket
Accumulation of heat expanded the continental crust, so that its surface was uplifted and the
relatively brittle upper part was fractured

Upwelling currents in the mantle (mantle

plumes) caused upraised blisters that
broke into three rifts at 120 to each
other
Rifts continued to widen, pulled apart by the movement of mantle material beneath the crust
Rifts continued to extend to link with similar rifts above other mantle plumes, so building a
lengthy rift system which eventually widened to become an ocean
The Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden & the
north end of the African Rift in Ethiopia
would be amodern example
 The rift valley filled with volcanic rocks and with sediments eroded off its flanks
The block of crust between two parallel faults dropped down, making a steep-sided valley-like
depression called a Graben
Half-grabens (down-faulted on only one side) were developed when Permian and older thrust
faults and transverse faults were reactivated, such that the original compressive forces were
released and extensional forces allowed the blocks to slide back down the fault plane

A series of such reactivated thrust and transverse (strike-slip) faults transected the province,
and adjacent to these faults were formed several new sedimentary basins
These grabens gradually filled with thick sequences of continental-type sediments and volcanic
rocks

During this period of sustained tension, magma welled up some fractures adjacent to the
sedimentary basins and either solidified as basaltic dykes and sills within the rock strata or was
extruded at the surface as lava flows
This cycle of opening and closing ocean basins is the Wilson Cycle
HOT SPOTS

When convection rises as a

single plume rather than along
a linear spreading ridge, the
result is a “Hot Spot”
On the surface hot spots
erupt as volcanoes of dark
basaltic rock material
The source of the molten rock is
at the asthenosphere

The Hawaiian islands are the best known

modern example of hot spots derived from
mantle plumes

Hot spot volcanoes often

form long chains that
result from the relative
motion of the lithosphere
plate over the hot-spot
source
Hot spots are single plumes of
molten rock ascending from the
(lower) mantle into the overriding
lithosphere
Such plumes have built the Hawaiian
Islands and the volcanic features of
Yellowstone National Park

World map showing the locations of selected prominent hotspots

 Mariana Trench

Philippine Plate Pacific Plate

Trenches form at the subduction zone Trenches are deep features of the earth

The depth of the Mariana trench is 11,033 m or 36, 198 feet

Whereas the height of the highest mountain (mt. Everest) is
only 8,848m or 29,029’
 Transform Boundary
When two plates slide past each other, transverse
fractures or transform faults take place
Along these boundaries no plate is formed or
destroyed and so they are called conservative plate
margins
These represent most of the oceanic fracture zones

Mid Oceanic Ridge System all over the globe is

effected by series of Transform Fault Boundary

This is to adjust the stress developed in the MOR

And are generally defined by shallow earthquakes

They commonly offset active spreading ridges

producing zigzag plate margins
A few occur on land. The San Andreas Fault zone in
California is a transform fault
The San Andreas Fault zone is 1,300km long
It slices through two thirds of the length of California
Along it, the Pacific Plate has been grinding
horizontally past the North American Plate for 10 my
at an average rate of about 5 cm/year

Land on the west side of the zone is moving in a

northwesterly direction relative to the land on the east
side of the fault zone
 California Earthquake April 4 2010
The most famous example is the San Andreas Fault
Zone in California
The portion of California in blue is heading
northwest to Alaska
This is the most studied fault zone in the world
Notice how
many have
occurred in
California
They are not kidding when theytalk about the “BIG
ONE”

Each red dot marks an earthquake