EES 150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: East African Rift, Convergent Boundary, Plate Tectonics

• School: University of Kentucky
• Department: Earth and Environmental Sciences
• Course: EES 150
• Professor: rebeccal.freeman

Document Summary

Lecture 5 & 6 : plate tectonics: geology"s unifying. The rigid lithosphere plates moves over plastic asthenosphere. The oceanic plates are thinner and denser while the continental plates are thicker and less dense. Isostasy is the idea that the asthenosphere deforms plastically to accommodate the plates. Edges of continental crust may be flooded and below sea level. Plate boundaries can be categorized by motion: divergent, convergent, or transform. Mid-ocean ridges are the most common type of divergent plate boundaries. Earthquakes are very common along mid-ocean ridges as the rocks break apart and melted rock material moves. Mid-ocean ridges increase in age and decrease in temperature and volume as you move away from the center. The seafloor varies in age by distance from spreading centers. Divergent plate boundary within a continent are less common because they fying. Some mid-ocean ridges spread rapidly, some more slowly.