OCEAN 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Pelagic Sediment, Blanco Fracture Zone, San Andreas Fault
Document Summary
The earth is strati ed by density, the core is the most dense. Core is a solid heated by pressure and radioactive decay. The plastic asthenosphere is a cooler mantle area that is not solid or liquid, it is plastic. The lithosphere is the completely solid part of the mantle, where the crust occurs. The oceanic crust is more dense than the continental crust so when they converge there is a subduction zone. Continental: granite, less dense: when two continental plates meet they cause mountains (himalayas) Trenches or islands/volcanos occur at subduction zone (japan) As the new plates move farther away they will hit a continent and then because they are cooler and denser than the continental plate they will subduct back in to the mantle and recycle the basalt. Approximately 12 plates are moving in different directions and as a result of movement there are divergent, convergent, and transform boundaries.
