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Earth's Formation in Connection to Plate Tectonics
Earth's Formation in Connection to Plate Tectonics
Today's solar system all began with a "big bang" This was an event that built up the periodic elements overtime till they were large enough to become small dust particles floating around in space. These sort of dust bunnies had an electrostatic charge that caused them to group together and eventually become big enough to have mass. By correlation, these particles also had gravity, which means that the smaller objects are attracted to the larger objects. Then, these masses entered the planetesimal stage, in which these masses formed an accretionary disk that over a long period of time turned the dust into planets. During this stage, there were tons of collisions of masses, which is how planets were formed. This stage brought smaller masses into orbit around suns, which have a significant gravitational pull. This process is how we have our solar system today!
A long time ago, when the Earth(Gia) was still just a ball of liquid magma floating around in space, another planetesimal object of similar size (Theia) collided into it. This collision caused magma to split off, which eventually became our moon.
After the collisions calmed down a bit, there were still lots of ice chunks colliding with Earth. These ice chunks hit earth and melted---since Earth was still liquid magma---but overtime, these ice chunks cooled down Earth enough that they began to stick to our planet, rather than melt on impact.
Eventually, the top layer of Earth cooled off enough to form a crust. The ice chunks that collided with Earth and melted formed our oceans and today, we have two types of crust: oceanic and continental.
Under Earth's crust today are the remnants of its formation process. Beneath Earth's surface are layers of molten magma that moves due to convection currents. These currents are what cause plate tectonics. The graphic below does a great job explaining these currents.
Continents breaking apart due to plate tectonics (1)
Earth's various layers (2)
Convection currents (3)
An Oceanic-oceanic convergence can be found out in the ocean, since both plates would be underwater.
An Oceanic-continental convergence can be found along coastlines, since one plate is oceanic crust(ocean) and the other is continental crust(land).
A Continental-continental convergence can be found anywhere two plates meet on land.
Plate Tectonics
Plate Tectonics
Divergent Plate Boundary: At divergent boundaries, the two plates are being pulled apart from each other due to convection currents in the mantle. Divergent boundaries form steep rift valles that are flat and wide in the middle. Divergent boundaries have the same process in both oceanic and continental crust.
Transform Plate Boundary: At transform boundaries, the two plates slide and grind against each other. Geology.com explains that the plates move in opposite direction from each other and a "transform fault is formed between two different plates, each moving away from the spreading center of a divergent plate boundary."
Convergent Plate Boundary: At convergent boundaries, we see the process of subduction occurring. Subduction is the process where two plates are pushing against each other and the denser(or heavier) plate is being forced under the less dense(or lighter) plate. The subducting plate is the one going under the other plate, which eventually turns into magma. At convergent plates, we often see trenches being formed where subduction is occurring and mountains formed in a sort of line next to these trenches. Typically, whichever plate is older and colder is the subducting plate since it has a higher density
In the case of an oceanic-oceanic convergent plate boundary, volcanic islands are formed, typically in a line along the boundary.
For oceanic-continental convergent plate boundaries, volcanoes form on land.
While continental-continental convergent plate boundaries form mountains.
Plate Tectonics on the Great Barrier Reef:
Plate Tectonics on the Great Barrier Reef:
Plate Location
Plate Location
The Great Barrier Reef lies on the Australian Plate, which is also sometimes refered to as the Indian-Australian Plate. The Great Barrier Reef is a part of the "coral sea" which Ecyclopedia Brittanica explains:
"North of latitude 20° S, the seafloor is dominated by the Coral Sea Plateau, which is marked north and south by the Osprey and Swain reefs....north of the plateau is the Coral Sea Basin" and "[the] sea was named for its numerous coral formations, highlighted by the Great Barrier Reef."
Plate Boundaries
Plate Boundaries
The boundaries surrounding the Australian Plate are a mixture of convergent plate boundaries to the north and east and divergent plate boundaries to the south and east. There is also a small portion that is a transform plate boundary.
*My Image
*My image
Bibliography for Plate Tectonics
Bibliography for Plate Tectonics
King, Hobart."Transform Plate Boundaries." Geology.com, Geoscience News and Information Geology.com, https://geology.com/nsta/transform-plate-boundaries.shtml.
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