Weathering, Erosion, and Plate Tectonics

1. Weathering, Erosion, and Plate Tectonics The creation of Earth’s Face

2. Questions • What forces and phenomena create the different features of the earth? • What are tectonic plates? • What are the three major Types of Plate Boundaries? • What are the two external processes that change the earth’s surface? • What are the different types of Weathering and Erosion?

3. Forces that change the Earth’s Surface • There are two major geological processes that create features on the earth: • Faulting and Plate Tectonics • Weathering and Erosion • They both take a long time to change the earth. • Remember, nothing drastic on earth happens at human speeds.

4. Plate Tectonics • Huge volumes of heated and molten rock moving around the earth’s interior form massive solid plates that move extremely slowly across the earth’s surface. • Tectonic plates: huge rigid plates that are moved with convection cells or currents by floating on magma or molten rock.

5. The Earth’s Major Tectonic Plates Figure 15-4

6. The Earth’s Major Tectonic Plates • The extremely slow movements of these plates cause them to grind into one another at convergent plate boundaries, move apart at divergent plate boundaries and slide past at transform plate boundaries. Figure 15-4

7. Fig. 15-4, p. 338

8. EURASIAN PLATE NORTH AMERICAN PLATE ANATOLIAN PLATE CARIBBEAN PLATE JUAN DE FUCA PLATE CHINA SUBPLATE ARABIAN PLATE PHILIPPINE PLATE AFRICAN PLATE PACIFIC PLATE SOUTH AMERICAN PLATE NAZCA PLATE INDIA-AUSTRALIAN PLATE SOMALIAN SUBPLATE ANTARCTIC PLATE Divergent plate boundaries Convergent plate boundaries Transform faults Fig. 15-4a, p. 338

9. Trench Volcanic island arc Craton Transform fault Lithosphere Rising magma Lithosphere Subduction zone Lithosphere Asthenosphere Asthenosphere Asthenosphere Divergent plate boundaries Convergent plate boundaries Transform faults Fig. 15-4b, p. 338

10. GEOLOGIC PROCESSES • The San Andreas Fault is an example of a transform fault. Figure 15-5

11. Wearing Down and Building Up the Earth’s Surface • Weathering is an external process that wears the earth’s surface down. Figure 15-6

12. Weathering • Three types of weathering: • Physical • Big Rock becomes Small Rock due to wind, rain, and frost wedging. • Frost wedging occurs when water freezes in between the pores of large sedimentary rocks. • Chemical • When a chemical reaction degrades or decompose rock. • More common with rocks containing carbon and oxygen, like limestone. • Biological • Conversion of Rock and Minerals into smaller particles due to living thing. • Lichens, Tree Roots, Earthworms.

13. Parent material (rock) Biological weathering (tree roots and lichens) Chemical weathering (water, acids, and gases) Physical weathering (wind, rain, thermal expansion and contraction, water freezing) Particles of parent material Fig. 15-6, p. 340

14. Erosion • Erosion is another major external factor that changes the surface of the earth. • Erosion is different from weathering because erosion deposits materials from one place to another. • Two major examples of erosion: • Glacial Movement and Melt • Mass Wasting

15. Glacial Movement and Mass Wasting • Glacial Movement • The Movement of Glaciers grind away mountainsides and form basins to capture melted ice water • The Great Lakes were formed using this method. • Mass Wasting • When Rock and soil masses become detached from underlying material and move downhill under the influence of gravity. • Rockslides, Mudslides, and Landslides • Clearing of Trees and other vegetation increase Mass Wasting Occurrences.