Quito, Ecuador, is the second highest national capital city in the world (2850 masl). It is 20 km long and 5 km wide, because it is nestled in a narrow valley high in the Andes. Adding to its fame, the city is established on the base of the Pichincha Volcano.
The Laguna Quilatoa is an extinct volcano, the westernmost in the famed Avenida de Volcanes in Ecuador. It received its name from Alexander von Humboldt due to the curious nature of how proximal so many volcanoes (including Cotopaxi, Chimborazo and Cayambe) are in a row along the Andes Mountain Chain. The last eruption led to a collapse of the caldera, which is 3 km in diameter.
You will be provided with case study information about a region in the world that lies along a plate boundary. The case study will include:
a map of the region
a map of volcanoes
a map of recent earthquakes
a topographic map of the continent or seafloor
Tasks for you to complete in the summative period include:
draw a cross section of the plates + classification of the type of plate boundary
labeled mantle convection + layers of the Earth
calculate the rate of plate movement
South America’s Andes Mountains and Atacama Trench created at a convergent boundary between the Nazca and South American Plates
The Himalayan Mountains formed from convergence, a collision between the Eurasian and Indian Plates
The island of Iceland is a volcanic hotspot that straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a divergent boundary
California sits on top of the San Andreas Fault, a transform boundary, which we can see evidence in these abandoned riverbeds offset by shearing stress
The content standard will be evaluated under "NGSS-ESS2.A Model how Earth's major systems and the Sun are constantly interacting to produce environmental changes." This will be determined by averaging your SEP performances.
Your labeled model of the plate boundary you select will be evaluated under SEP2 "developing and using models". The calculations you perform about the rate of plate movement will be evaluated under SEP5 "mathematical and computational thinking".
