1. Plate Tectonic Notes

2. Lithosphere
the rigid, brittle, outermost layer of Earth.
Includes crust and uppermost region of mantle

3. The Earth’s lithosphere (oceanic floor and continents) is broken into pieces called PLATES.

4. Earths plates move over time.
Approx. 200 million years ago all continents were joined together in a super continent called PANGAEA

5. Pangea
225 million years ago
200 million years ago

6. 200 million years ago
135 million years ago

7. 135 million years ago
65 million years ago

8. 65 million years ago
Today

10. Plates are still moving!

11. What makes the plates move?
Heat transfer from hotter material to less hot material in the mantle results in density changes to the mantle material. Convection currents are made when less dense material moves toward the surface, then cools and sinks as it becomes more dense. The moving convection currents drag the plates at the surface.

13. Where the edges of two plates
meet is known as a
PLATE BOUNDARY.

14. 3 Types of plate boundaries
1. Transform:
•Two plates sliding past each other.
•Found near/associated with:
Faults
Earthquakes

16. San Andreas Fault near Gorman, California
San Andreas Fault near Gorman, California. The grey, metamorphic quartz monzonite on the left side of the fault
are rocks of the Pacific Plate and the brown sandstone and siltstone on the right of the fault are rocks of the
North American Plate. Photograph copyright by David Lynch.

17. 2. DIVERGENT:
•Two plates moving apart
•Found near/Associated with:
Ridges and rift valleys
Volcanoes
earthquakes

20. 3. CONVERGENT:
•Two plates moving towards each other (collision)

21. Himalayan Mountain Range

22. Mt. St. Helens

23. •Convergent boundaries have two possible outcomes when plates meet:
b. SUBDUCTION:
one plate moves under the other
Trenches
Volcanoes
Earthquakes
a. Mountain building: Both plates move upward.
Mountains form (non-volcanic)
Earthquakes