Tectonics/Earthquakes

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Seafloor Spreading: In 1960, Harry Hess hypothesized that new oceanic lithosphere is created by the upwelling and partial melting from the asthenosphere at ocean ridges.
Pressure Ridges: When there is a left step within a right-lateral transform fault, plates are forced to converge. The convergence causes the crust to buckle, forming ridges and mountains.
Fault: A crack on the ground where an earthquake can occur.
Outer Core: Over 2200 km thick. Mostly iron and nickel with density of 710 g/cc. Liquid.
Mesosphere: Makes up the remaining water. "Stiff plastic."
3 major types of plate tectonic boundaries: Divergence zones, transform faults, convergence zones
The Transverse Ridge: East-west trending Transverse Ranges of SoCal are due to the Big Bend of the San Andreas Fault. The left step forces the Pacific and N. American plate to converge.
Vine-Matthews Hypothesis: Essentially, the stripes are due to metallic minerals pointing to the geographic north or the geographic south. Vine and Matthews hypothesized that the orientations of the metallic minerals were a product of the Earth's geometric state at the time the minerals form.
Thermal: Refers to the work that affects temperature.
Love Waves: Surface waves that shear the ground in a horizontal direction. Can only travel through solids. Third to arrive.
What are the two types of seismic waves?: Body waves and surface waves.
Earthquake Detection: P-waves arrive first, followed by the S-wave, then the surface waves.
Energy: Represents the work that one system can perform on another.
Ocean-continent convergence: When oceanic lithosphere converges into continental lithosphere, the oceanic lithosphere sinks or subducts. Water, brought in with the subducting plate, generates partial melting in the asthenosphere. The partial melts rise to the Earth's surface to become volcanoes.
Left-lateral transform faults: Occur when the plate across the margin is moving to the left.
Transform Faults: A boundary along two plates which slides past each other. They are characterized by the direction the plates are moving relative to one another. An example would be the San Andreas Fault.
Ocean-ocean convergence: When two oceanic plates converge, one is usually denser than the other. As an oceanic plate ages, it cools and becomes denser with time. The older, colder plate will subduct beneath the younger, hotter plate.
Continental Drift evidence: Puzzle pieces, plant fossils, glacial scratches on rocks, similar age of rocks, and mountains matched up.
Continents do not...: Float on a vat of molten lava.
Evidence for plate movement: In 1912, Alfred Wegener proposed his hypothesis of continental drift.
Sediments: Forms when other rocks are broken down into bits of minerals.
Temperature is measured by...: The molecules bouncing around.
Continental Drift Hypothesis: Pangaea had split into fragments like pieces of ice floating on a pond and that the continental fragments had slowly drifted to their present locations.
Plate Tectonics evidence: Magnetic Stripes, spreading centers, subduction.
Body Waves: Travels throughout the Earth.
Lithosphere: The outermost 100 km of Earth including the crust and upper mantle. Cool, rigid, brittle. Makes up tectonic plates. Solid.
Mantle: 80% of Earth's volume is contained here, about 2,900 km thick. Mostly iron and magnesium silicates with density of > 3 g/cc
Magnetic Reversals: Earth's magnetic field is caused by the movement of molten metals in the outer core through a static electric field, causing a geometric dynamo. This dynamo is responsible for the magnetic poles of Earth. For reasons not completely clear, the dynamo causes the magnetic poles to "flip" on average ever 250,000 years.
Atoms: Likes to bond.
Geological Time: The Earth is thought to be 4.55 billion years old. The oldest rocks found on Earth date between 3.8 to 3.9 billion years old. Using radioactive isotopes, meteorites found on Earth have been dated between 4.2 and 4.6 billion years. The transition from pangaea into the modern position of the continents took ~200 million years.
Hot Spot Volcanoes: Locations on Earth where molten material from the near the core erupts at Earth's surface to form a volcano. Although they are unrelated to plate tectonics, they generally remain fixed with time and have been used as a means of tracking plate motions.
Locating the Earthquake: If three seismic stations record an earthquake, each can independently determine its own distance from the focus. The three circles have a unique intersection at the epicenter.
P-wave: Primary wave, arrives first. Can travel through solid, liquid, and gas. A compression wave.
Elastic Rebound Theory: A fault is a crack in the Earth in which material on either side is moving in opposite directions. When the material gets stuck, stress along the fault builds up. When the friction along the fault is overcome by the build-up of stress, the material strains, or pops, into motion.
Layers of the Earth: Lithosphere, Asthenosphere, Mesosphere, Outer Core, Inner Core
Conduction: Transferring heat energy by interaction of molecules.
Earth's internal heat derives from...: Original heat, impact of meteorite, and radioactive decay of isotopes deep within the Earth.
Divergent Plate Margins: A boundary along which two plates move apart from one another. Earthquakes tends to be fairly weak. An example would be the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
Mantle Convection: Hot rock rises slowly and plastically from deep within Earth, then cools, flows sideways, and sinks.
Inner Core: Over 1200 km thick. Solid iron and nickel. Solid.
Plate Tectonics: Describes and explains the motions of these plates as well as the forces acting between them.
San Andreas Fault: A right-lateral fault in California which forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. The Big Bend is the left-step of the San Andreas Fault.
Ignition: Forces bonds to break, which makes heat.
Asthenosphere: Extends from 100 to 350 km beneath Earth's surface. "Soft plastic."
Convection: Transfers heat by conduction into a moving or flowing medium.
What is Plate Tectonics?: Earth's surface is a mosaic of 13 (or is it 15?) major rigid plates of lithosphere, as well as a number of smaller plates, that move slowly over the asthenosphere.
Pull-apart Basins: When there is a right-step within a right-lateral transform fault, plates are forced to diverge. The divergence forms a depression that can fill with water to form a sag pond or can grow large enough to form a valley.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It is either:: Converted, transferred, or stored.
Continent-continent convergence: When two continents converge, their similar densities make it difficult to force either of them to sink. As a result, the continental lithosphere buckles to force the surface of the crust upward, erecting large mountains.
Rayleigh Waves: Surface waves that travel in a backward-rotating, elliptical motion, causing both vertical and horizontal ground movement. Can travel through solid, liquid, and gas. Fourth to arrive. Dangerous.
Convergent Margins: A boundary along the two plates come together. When two continents converge, their similar densities make it difficult to force either of them to sink. As a result, these types of convergent margins produce some of the biggest mountains in the world. An example would be Mt. Everest in the Himalayas.
Phase Changes: transfers heat by boiling, melting, and freezing.
Evidence that SB used to be part of SD: Sediments, magnetic stripes, mountains
Epicenter: Right above the focus.
S-wave shadow zone: S-waves cannot pass through liquids; they are absorbed.
Focus: Where an earthquake occurs.
Right-lateral transform faults: Occur when the plate across the margin is moving to the right.
Pressure: Forces the atoms together.
Surface Waves: Travels only on the surface of the Earth.
Pangaea: One huge continent.
S-wave: Slower than P-waves, secondary waves. Can only travel through solids. Shears the ground vertically.
Crust: 8 km thick under ocean, 45 km thick under continental. Mostly silicates with density of ~2.7 g/cc. Oceanic crust is denser.

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