Essay On Plate Tectonics

1105 Words5 Pages
Approximately 90% of Earth’s volcanic activity caused by the Earth’s plate tectonic processes. Frisch et al. (2011) defines plate tectonics as a theory formed in 1970s that explains the process of how the multiple rigid lithospheric plates on the Earth’s crust move across the molten, ductile asthenosphere. As the plates move due to convection currents, they can then form geological features such as volcanoes, mountain belts, etc. and can trigger natural disasters such as volcanism, earthquakes, etc. There are 3 focal plate boundaries formed by plate tectonics, convergent, divergent and transform. Volcanism tends to occur along convergent boundaries where it is a succession of volcanoes in an arc or underwater along the divergent plate boundary. There is also a special case were volcanism can occur intraplate where a continental mass moves over a ‘hotspot’ in the mantle. When volcanism occurs, it can have many effects on the evolution of the…show more content…
As stated by Lécuyer (2001), this type of volcanism occurs due to the hot plumes in the mantle caused by the upsurge of magma towards the surface of the plate. As lithospheric plates are constantly moving due to convection currents, sometimes move over hotspots to form a chain of volcanic island arcs. An example of an intraplate volcano would be the Hawaiian volcanoes. The volcanoes located on the northwest end of the Hawaiian chain are older and extinct. This is where the plate had first moved across the hotspot. As shown in Figure 3, the more you move down the volcanic chain, the younger and more active the volcanoes become, showing us that the plate has moved across the hotspot in a line, providing evidence of the plate tectonic theory. The volcanic activity generated here are less violent, effusive and look like ‘lava geysers’ where magma shoots up into the
Show More
Related

  • Haiti Earthquake

    2518 Words  | 11 Pages

    Haiti is a small mountainous country that shares the borders of the island Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. Haiti a beautiful country and it’s known for the humid tropical climate and extensive mountains. On January 12, 2010 at 4:53pm a 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked the country of Haiti followed by two more 5.9 and 5.5 aftershocks. It is estimated that more than 3.5 million people in Haiti were affected by the Earthquake and more than 200,000 people were estimated to be dead. In 2012 the

    Read More

  • Charles Richter's Contribution To Geography

    1495 Words  | 6 Pages

    Richter scale to mapping earthquake prone areas in California and also taking a huge role in Californias earthquake safety. His contribution is extremely important to the Geography of Natural hazards and Seismology, which is what the criteria of this essay, for his contribution to the discipline will be based on, the extent to which he influenced the geography of Natural hazards and our understanding. Charles Francis Richter was born in 1900, in a small village

    Read More

  • Importance Of Mythology In Modern Media

    1789 Words  | 8 Pages

    Mythology in Modern Media Barjaa Brown Virginia Commonwealth University I am currently studying mythology in modern media because I want to find out how it is used in popular culture so that I might better understand the effects its use has on meaning and society. This project is reasonable and compelling because mythology and its allusions are found everywhere, from logos to lyrics and literature to television. When used, they help add complexity and meaning to a given text, painting, object

    Read More

More about Essay On Plate Tectonics

Open Document