EAPS 10200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: San Andreas Fault, Plate Tectonics, Indian Australians
7 Oct 2017
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Document Summary
Tectonic plates: the surface of the earth is broken into distinct pieces called plates. There are 8 major plates and over 20 minor plates. Major tectonic plates: african, antarctic, eurasian, north american, south american, pacific. Convergent: these are the places where plates are colliding with each other. Divergent: these are places where plates are moving away from each other. Transform: these are places where plates are sliding past each other. Convergent: when an ocean plate collides with a continental plate the denser ocean plate is forced under the less dense continental plate. This is often marked by a string of volcanoes parallel to the shore line in the continental plate. When the subducting ocean plate reaches a certain depth it begins to melt. The molten rock is less dense than the surrounding solid rock and begins to rise through cracks in the overlying rock. The cascade mountains in oregon and washington are examples of this.
