Oceanic crust

New crust is generated as plates pull away from each other and can either cause sea floor spreading or new land to be created. An example of a continental rift valley is the Eastern African Rift Valley which is being formed as the Eastern African plate is moving away from the main Africa plate in a north-easterly direction. Plates move apart due to convection currents in the lithosphere. As the crusts move away from each other the crust thins, tension in the lithosphere causes the plate to…

and stood out to many scientists for a long time. It is believed that diamonds form around 90 to 150 miles below Earth’s surface with the help of extraordinary heat and pressure. This takes place in the mantle. The mantle is in between the Earth’s crust and outer core. However, exactly how they form is the mystery. Some scientists believe that diamonds form from some type of liquid/fluid. What is this liquid? Well, when diamonds are formed, some are “impure” and some are “flawless”. (By…

a highly active volcanic region situated in the central part of the North Island in New Zealand. The Taupo Volcanic Zone (TVZ) stretches from Ohakune in the south of the Bay of Plenty to White Island in the north. It is estimated that the Earth’s crust below the Taupo Volcanic Zone may possibly be as small as 16 kilometers think and currently moves approximately 8mm per year. The TVZ is named after Lake Taupo, the caldera of the formaly largest volcano in the zone. The region we see today is…

Who was Alfred Wegener? Alfred Wegener was born in Berlin, Germany on November 1, 1880. He was a meteorologist (a person who studies the atmosphere and its weather (Meteorology, n.d.)) and geologist (a person who studies about the Earth’s history through rocks, layers of soil, etc. (Geology, n.d.)). In the early twentieth century, Wegener championed the continental drift theory. In 1904, he attended University of Berlin, where is he studied natural sciences also, received his doctorate in…

The Earth's crust is constantly moving in all directions. The movement of the crust is called plate tectonics. Plate tectonics hasn't been developed very long, only about fifty years. It was founded by geophysicists in the 1960's. The continents fit together in one humongous piece. Which makes it one enormous continent. Wegener found out that there were numerous continents that looked comparable. He thought once in the past that parts of Africa and South America might have been…

almost all geologic processes. AS I’m sure you can imagine, the idea that the entire crust of the earth constantly shifts has dramatically altered the way we think of the planet we live on. In this essay we will look at the development of the theory of plate tectonics by ocean floor mapping, magnetic pole reversals, and seafloor spreading. First up is looking at ocean floor mapping. Nearly two thirds of the Earth's crust exist under ocean waters. No one really knew what the death of the ocean…

of patterns of deformation in the crust, continental drift, earthquakes, and mid-ocean ridges. Two major properties of plate tectonics are the lithosphere, and how it's broken into numerous segments in constant motion and evolution. The prime theory of plate tectonics, seafloor spreading, states that the new lithosphere crust is formed at ocean ridges and moves away from ridge axes with a motion like that of a conveyor belt as the newly formed lithosphere crust fills in the cracks or rifts. To…

constant friction between is the primary cause of earthquakes, volcanoes, oceanic trenches, mountain range formation, and many other geologic phenomenons. How these deformations manifest themselves on the earth depends on how the interaction of two plates occurs at their boundaries. Each type of plate movement, divergent, lateral and convergent, generates distinct geologic processes and landforms. At divergent boundaries, two oceanic plates separate,…

Geology The Field of Geology didn’t become a major field until World war II, when the sea floor was mapped out in detail for submarines revealing a mid-Atlantic underwater mountain range, and a rift which started the theory of Plate Tectonics. Plate tectonics are used to explain the forming of mountains and even continents after the Pangaea. Plate tectonics explains that continents could have broken up, but there are 2 major theories on how. Catastrophist’s believe that a series of catastrophes…

underwater mountain range which are formed by plate tectonics. It consist of mountains linked together, having a valley running along the spine, and its known as an oceanic spreading center which is in charge of the seafloor spreading. New seafloor is being produced when convection currents rise in the mantle layer which is under the oceanic crust, it then create magma that cools down into basalt where two plates is push away from each other. Ridge push and slab pull are the two processes that…