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Movement of the
Tectonic Plates
 What are Plates?
• The Earth’s crust and upper
mantle (Lithosphere) are
Asthenosphere, zone of
broken into sections called
plates Earth’s mantle lying beneath
the lithosphere and believed
Plates move around on top of much
to be the mantle likemore
hotter and
rafts fluid than the lithosphere.
A section of the lithosphere that slowly moves
over the asthenosphere, carrying pieces of
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continental and oceanic crust.
Oceanic crust, the outermost
oceanic
layer of Earth’s lithosphere that is ridge is an
found under the oceans and underwater mountain
formed at spreading centers
on oceanic ridges. range

The continental crust is the layer

of granitic, sedimentary andA continental shelf is a
metamorphic rocks which form portion of a continent that is
the continents and the areas of
submerged under an area of
shallow seabed close to theirrelatively shallow water
shores, known as known as a shelf sea.
continental shelves. 4
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 Plate Tectonics
• The Earth’s crust is divided into many plates which are
moved in various directions.
• This plate motion causes them to collide, pull apart, or
scrape against each other.
• Each type of interaction causes a characteristic set of
Earth structures or “tectonic” features.
• The word, tectonic, refers to the deformation of the crust
as a consequence of plate interaction.

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What are tectonic plates made of?
• Plates are
made of rigid
lithosphere.
The lithosphere is
made up of the
crust and the
upper part of the
mantle.
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 What lies beneath the tectonic plates?

Below the
lithosphere (which
makes up the
tectonic plates) is
the asthenosphere.

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 What is the Theory of Plate Tectonics?
The theory that pieces of Earth’s lithosphere are in constant
motion, driven by convection currents in the mantle.

• Plates move
slowly in Convection currents transfer
different heat from one place to
directions another by mass motion of a
fluid such as water, air or
 Cause different molten rock.
geologic events
(like earthquake,
volcano, etc.)
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Tectonic plate / Plate Continent

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Types of Plate
Movements
Three main types of plate boundaries:
•Divergent: extensional; the plates move apart.
Spreading ridges, basin-range
•Convergent: compressional; plates move
toward each other. Includes: Subduction zones
and mountain building.
•Transform: shearing; plates slide past each
other. Strike-slip motion.
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Divergent Plate Movement (Divergent Boundary):
Seafloor Spreading

is a linear feature that exists between two tectonic plates that are moving
away from each other. Divergent boundaries within continents initially
produce rifts which eventually become rift valleys.

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Helpful Hints…
•Divergent is like “dissecting” or “dividing”

•If you pull warm bubble gum, it will thin in the

middle until it is stressed so much that it breaks.

•Happens on land
& under water

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Convergent Boundaries
• Places where
plates crash
(or crunch)
together or
subduct (one
sinks under)

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 How is the rock pushed at convergent
boundaries?
A plate boundary where two plates move
towards each other.
Boundaries between two
plates that are colliding

  This stress is called COMPRESSION

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 There are 3 types of Convergent
Boundaries…
1. Ocean plate colliding with a less dense
continental plate

Subduction Zone: The process by which oceanic

crust sinks beneath a deep-ocean trench and
back into the mantle at a convergent plate
boundary.
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What else happens at Convergent Boundaries?

VOLCANOES
occur at
subduction
zones
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Andes Mountains, South America

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•2. Ocean plate colliding with another ocean plate

•The less dense plate slides under the more dense plate
creating a subduction zone called a TRENCH

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3. Continental plate colliding with another
continental plate
Have Collision Zones:
A place where folded and thrust faulted mountains
form.

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•May form Mountain Ranges.
These are Folded Mountains, like the Himalayas or the
Rockies.

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 Helpful Hints…
• Convergent = “Connecting” boundaries
• May work like a trash compactor smashing rock.
– Rock goes crunches up to make folded mountains.
– Rock goes down “under” @ subduction zone.

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 Transform Boundaries
A plate boundary where two plates move past
each other in opposite direction.

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How is the rock broken at Transform
Boundaries?

Rock is pushed in two

opposite directions (or
sideways, but no rock is
lost)
This stress is called
SHEARING

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 What happens next at Transform Boundaries?
• May cause
Earthquakes when
the rock snaps
from the pressure.
• A famous fault at a
Transform
Boundary is the
San Andreas Fault
in California.
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 Helpful Hints…
• Shearing means cutting (“Shears” are like
scissors)
• Transform boundaries run like trains going past
each other in different directions & they shake
the ground!

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