Atmosphere

Definition:

“Atmosphere is the mixture of gases surrounding any celestial object that has a
gravitational field strong enough to prevent the gases from escaping; especially the
gaseous envelope of Earth.”

 The principal constituents of the atmosphere of Earth are nitrogen (78 percent) and oxygen
(21 percent).
 The atmospheric gases in the remaining 1 percent are argon (0.9 percent), carbon dioxide
(0.03 percent), varying amounts of water vapor, and trace amounts of hydrogen, ozone,
methane, carbon monoxide, helium, neon, krypton, and xenon.
 Without our atmosphere, there would be no life on Earth. A relatively thin envelope, the
atmosphere consists of layers of gases that support life and provide protection from harmful
radiation.

Troposphere:

Definition:

“Troposphere is the lowest layer of the earth's atmosphere and site of all weather on the
earth.”

 The troposphere is bounded on the top by a layer of air called the tropopause, which
separates the troposphere from the stratosphere and on the bottom by the surface of the
earth.
 The troposphere is wider at the equator (16 km/10 mi) than at the poles (8 km/5 mi).
 The temperature of the troposphere is warmest in the tropical (latitude 0º to about 30º
north and south) and subtropical (latitude about 30º to about 40º north and south) climatic
zones and coldest at the polar climatic zones (latitude about 70º to 90º north and south).
 Temperature decreases with height at an average of 6.5º C per 1000 m reaching about -80º
C above the tropical regions and about -50º C above the polar regions.
 Decrease of temperature is called the lapse rate.
Stratosphere:

 Stratosphere, upper layer of the atmosphere commencing at an altitude of 8 to 16 km (5 to

10 mi) and extending upward to about 50 km (30 mi).
 In the lower portion of the stratosphere, the temperature remains nearly constant with
height, but in the upper portion the temperature increases rapidly with height because of
absorption of sunlight by ozone.
 Ozone layer is produced by the action of ultraviolet sunlight on oxygen.
 Jet aircraft mainly fly through the lower stratosphere because the stratosphere is almost
completely free of clouds or other forms of weather and provides pilot with fine visibility.

Mesosphere:

 Above the ozone-rich stratosphere lies the mesosphere, where air temperature, again,
decreases with height.
 The mesosphere is the coldest layer of the atmosphere and extends from an altitude of
about 50 km to about 85 km (about 30 mi to 50 mi).
 Above the mesosphere lies the hot thermosphere, where air temperatures can exceed
1000° C (1800° F), primarily due to oxygen absorbing the sun’s energetic rays.

Thermosphere:

 The thermosphere is found above 80 km (50 mi) and continues to the edge of space, above
60000 km (37000 mi) above the surface.
 Temperature rises spectacularly in this layer and likely reaches 900C (1650 F) at 350 km
(220 mi).
 Ionization takes place in the thermosphere, producing two more belts known as the E and F-
layers that reflect radio waves.
 Intermittently ionized particles penetrate in the thermosphere, creating vivid sheet-like
displays of light called the aurora borealis in the northern hemisphere and aurora australis
in the southern hemisphere.
 The thermosphere has no definable boundary and gradually blends into interplanetary
space.
 Hydrosphere

Definition:
“All the water: the portion of the earth’s surface that is water, including the seas and
water in the atmosphere.”

 The hydrosphere consists of the bodies of water that cover 71 percent of Earth’s surface.
 The largest of these are the oceans, which contain over 97 percent of all water on Earth.
 Glaciers and the polar ice caps contain just over 2 percent of Earth’s water in the form of
solid ice.
 Only about 0.6 percent is under the surface as groundwater.
 Nevertheless, groundwater is 36 times more plentiful than water found in lakes, inland
seas, rivers, and in the atmosphere as water vapor.
 Only 0.017 percent of all the water on Earth is found in lakes and rivers.
 And a mere 0.001 percent is found in the atmosphere as water vapor.
 Most of the water in glaciers, lakes, inland seas, rivers, and groundwater is fresh and can be
used for drinking and agriculture.
 Dissolved salts compose about 3.5 percent of the water in the oceans, however, making it
unsuitable for drinking or agriculture unless it is treated to remove the salts.

Water cycle:

Definition:

“Water Cycle or Hydrologic Cycle is the series of movements of water above, on, and
below the surface of the earth.”

 The water cycle consists of four distinct stages: storage, evaporation, precipitation, and
runoff.
 Water may be stored temporarily in the ground; in oceans, lakes, and rivers; and in ice caps
and glaciers.
 It evaporates from the earth’s surface, condenses in clouds
 It falls back to the earth as precipitation (rain or snow)
 Eventually, it either runs into the seas or re-evaporates into the atmosphere.
 Almost all the water on the earth has passed through the water cycle countless times.
 Very little water has been created or lost over the past billion years.

1. Storage:
 Enormous volumes of water are involved in the water cycle.
 There are about 1.4 billion cu km (about 340 million cu mi) of water on the earth. Slightly
more than 97 percent of this amount is ocean water and is therefore salty.

 However, because the water that evaporates from the ocean is almost free of salt,
the rain and snow that fall on the earth are relatively fresh.

 Fresh water is stored in glaciers, lakes, and rivers, groundwater in the soil and rocks.

 There are about 36 million cu km (about 8.6 million cu mi) of fresh water on the
earth.
 The atmosphere holds about 12,000 cu km (about 2,900 cu mi) of water at any time,
while all the world’s rivers and freshwater lakes hold about 120,000 cu km (about
29,000 cu mi).
 The world’s two main reservoirs of fresh water (Antarctica and Greenland) are the
great polar ice caps, which contain about 28 million cu km (about 6.7 million cu mi),
and the ground, which contains about 8 million cu km (about 2 million cu mi).

2. Evaporation:

 Evaporation is the process by which liquid water changes to water vapor and enters the
atmosphere as a gas.
 Evaporation of ice is called sublimation.
 Evaporation from the leaf pores, or stomata of plants is called transpiration.
 Every day about 1,200 cu km (about 290 cu mi) of water evaporates from the ocean, land,
plants, and ice caps, while an equal amount of precipitation falls back on the earth.
 If evaporation did not replenish the water lost by precipitation, the atmosphere would dry
out in ten days.
 The evaporation rate increases with temperature, sunlight intensity, wind speed, plant
cover, and ground moisture
 It decreases as the humidity of the air increases.
 The evaporation rate on the earth varies from almost zero on the polar ice caps to as much
as 4 m (as much as 13 ft) per year over the Gulf Stream.
 The average is about 1 m (about 3.3 ft) per year. At this rate, evaporation would lower sea
level about 1 m per year if the water were not replenished by precipitation and runoff.

3. Precipitation:
 Precipitation occurs when water vapor in the atmosphere condenses into clouds and falls
to the earth.
 Precipitation can take a variety of forms, including rain, snow, ice pellets, and hail.
 About 300 cu km (about 70 cu mi) of precipitation falls on the land each day.
 Almost two-thirds of this precipitation re-evaporates into the atmosphere, while the rest
flows down rivers to the oceans.
 Individual storms can produce enormous amounts of precipitation.
 For example, an average winter low-pressure system drops about 100 cu km (about
24 cu mi) of water on the earth during its lifetime of several days, and a severe
thunderstorm can drop 0.1 cu km (0.02 cu mi) of water in a few hours over a small
area.

4. Runoff:

 Water that flows down streams and rivers is called surface runoff.

 Every day about 100 cu km (about 24 cu mi) of water flows into the seas from
the world’s rivers.
 The Amazon River, the world’s largest river, provides about 15 percent of this
water. Runoff is not constant.

 It decreases during periods of drought or dry seasons and increases during rainy seasons,
storms, and periods of rapid melting of snow and ice.
 Water reaches rivers in the form of either overland flow or groundwater flow and then
flows downstream.
 Overland flow occurs during and shortly after intense rainstorms or periods of rapid
melting of snow and ice.
 It can raise river levels rapidly and produce floods.

 In severe floods, river levels can rise more than 10 m (more than 33 ft) and
inundate large areas.

 Groundwater flow runs through rocks and soil.

 Precipitation and melted water percolate into the ground and reach a level,
known as the water table, at which all of the spaces in the rocks are filled with
water.
 Groundwater flows from areas where the water table is higher to areas where it
is lower.
 The speed of flow averages less than 1 m (less than 3.3 ft) a day.

 When groundwater reaches streams, it supplies a base flow that changes little from day to
day and can persist for many days or weeks without rain or melted water.
 During periods of sustained drought, however, the water table can fall so low that streams
and wells dry out.
 Biosphere

Definition:

Biosphere is the earth's relatively thin zone of air, soil, and water that is capable of
supporting life.

 It ranges from about 10 km (about 6 mi) into the atmosphere to the deepest ocean
floor.

 Life in this zone depends on the sun's energy and on the circulation of heat and
essential nutrients.
 The only known exception is deep-sea hydrothermal vent ecosystems, which depend
entirely on the earth's energy.
 Large-scale divisions of the biosphere into regions of different growth patterns are
called biomes.

Biome:

Definition:

Biome is known as life zone including all plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as the
physical environment in a particular area.

 A biome is characterized by its plant life, the types of which are determined by a
location’s climatic conditions, latitude, and altitude.
 For example:
o Northern coniferous forests exist in subarctic portions of North America and Asia, but
further north, the conditions are simply too harsh and the season too brief for trees to
grow.
 A biome is composed of many ecosystems—smaller communities of plants and
animals and their habitats (the physical parts of their environment that affect them).

Following are the Major terrestrial biomes:

1. The tropical rain forest:

 The tropical rain forest is the most complex biome in the world.
 This biome is found at low elevations in the tropics where it is perpetually warm and
wet.
 Rain forests are characterized by a dense tree canopy—tree top branches and leaves
that overlap with each other, creating a shaded forest interior.
o These canopies may reach up to 50 m (160 ft) high.
 o The thick canopy allows little sunlight to penetrate, so rain forest floors have
sparse ground cover.
 The soils are nutrient-poor, and most plants are able to store what few nutrients they can
absorb.

2. The northern coniferous forest:

 The northern coniferous forest, also known as the taiga in Russia

 It is found in a broad subarctic band across Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, Russia, and
China, where the winters are long and cold.
 Conifers, such as spruce, larch, and fir, are the dominant plants, but lichens and mosses
are abundant too.
 Muskegs, or bogs, occur throughout the region.

3. The tundra:

 The tundra is the treelessplain that lies north of the northern coniferous forests and on the
Antarctic Peninsula in the southernhemisphere.
 Trees cannot survive in this biome because of the cold temperatures, high winds, and
heavy snowfall, as well as the permafrost, a layer of permanently frozen subsoil.
 Plant life tends to grow low to the ground.
 In the summer, large numbers of birds migrate to the tundra to feed on insects.
 Other animals found in this area include reindeer, wolves, fox, voles, and lemmings.
 A similar biome, called the alpinebiome, is found in high mountain areas around the
world.
 Similar harsh conditions cause vegetation to grow low to the ground in alpinemeadows.

4. The Desert:

 Desert biomes are characterized by less than 254 mm (10 in) of annual precipitation and
hightemperatures.
 To combat this lack of moisture, desert plants have developed water-conserving features,
such as leaves that are light-colored, small, thick, or waxy.
 Animals that live in the desert are often light-colored, blend in well with their
surroundings, and are usually more active at night to avoid the blazing heat during the
day.

5. The Grassland:

 Grassland biomes are found on every continent except Antarctica.

 It accounts for about one quarter of the Earth's land surface.
 Typically found on flat or rolling terrain, grasslands tend to occur in the interior of
continents where precipitation is lower.
 Periodic droughts occur in most grassland, accompanied by searing heat that scorches
most vegetation in the area.
 Grasslands are covered with grasses, sedges, and other low-growing, perennialplants.
 Drought, fire, and grazingbyherbivores, such as bison and deer, restrict tree growth.
 Most grasslandshave been extensively cultivated and are now regions where major crops
of wheat, corn, and other grains are grown.

6. The Tropical savannas:

 Tropical savannas are expansive grasslands dotted with trees.

 The world's largest and best-knownsavanna is the African savanna
o It covers much of the continent south of the Sahara desert.
o Here, herds of animals graze on the tall grass, and giraffes browse on the trees.
 Other tropical savannas are found in South America, India, and Australia.

7. The chaparral:

 The chaparral biome is dominated by dense thickets of mostly small-

leafedevergreenshrubs.
 It is characterized by hot, drysummers and cool, wetwinters.
 This biome can be found in the foothillsofCalifornia and Mediterranean climate regions.
 Chaparral plants have adapted to the frequent fires that result from lightning and dry
conditions.

8. The Boreal Evergreen Forests:

 A great band of evergreen conifer forests extends around the Northern Hemisphere in the
subarctic latitudes.
 Within this zone, the growing season is brief and the winter is long and cold.
 These circumstances exclude most broadleaf deciduous trees, which require more time to
regrow their leaves than the subarctic climate provides.
 Evergreen trees, on the other hand, are ready to resume photosynthesis whenever the air
grows mild enough.
 Furthermore, the compact, cylindrical shape and waxy skin of the needlelike leaves
retards moisture loss during the winter, when environmental water is unavailable because
it is frozen.
 In Eurasia, the taiga spans the continent from the Russian Far East to Scandinavia.

9. The Mediterranean Woodlands:

 A climate of mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers produces characteristic woodlands
composed of evergreen shrubs and small trees, many with small, hard leaves—
sclerophyll—that resist drying by closing the pores through which water vapor can
escape.
 After the season of drought, the sclerophylls resume their photosynthetic activity.
 Mediterranean woodlands grow in five widely scattered regions.
 The best known, and the ones for which this class of ecoregions is named, are the
woodlands that grow all around the Mediterranean Sea.

10. The Seashore:

 Seashore is boundary between the land and the sea.

 This boundary is also called the shore or the shoreline.
 A variety of landforms exists at the seashore, including sandy beaches, rocky cliffs, tide
pools (also called tidal pools), and coral reefs. Each of these landforms is shaped by the
wind, waves, tides, and currents.
 The wide variety of landforms yields a variety of habitats, or environments for plants and
animals.
 For example, in shallow shore areas with low waves and weak currents, sea grasses
flourish. They provide protected habitats where many species of animals lay their eggs
and the young can grow in size and strength before facing the harsher environment of the
open ocean.
 By contrast, in areas with stronger currents or waves, burrowing animals, such as clams,
dig themselves into the mud or sand to avoid the vigorous water movement.
 However, these animals also depend on the moving water to supply food in the form of
smaller animals and plant and animal debris suspended in the water.

11. The Shore Life:

 Shore Life, the essentially marine organisms that inhabit the region bounded on one side
by the height of the extreme high tide and on the other by the height of the extreme low
tide.
 Within these boundaries organisms face a severe environment imposed by the rise and
fall of tides.
 For up to half of a 24-hour period, the environment is marine; the rest of the time it is
exposed, with terrestrial extremes in temperature and the drying effects of wind and sun.
 Life on rocky shores, best developed on northern coasts, is separated into distinct zones
that reflect the length of time each zone is exposed.
 At the highest position on the rocks is the black zone, marked by encrusted cyanobacteria
(formerly known as blue-green algae).
 This transition area between land and the marine environment is flooded only during the
high spring or fortnightly tides.
 Below the black zone lies the white zone, where barnacles are tightly glued to rocks.
Living among the barnacles are rock-clinging mollusks called limpets.
 Below the white zone and in some places overlying the barnacles are rockweeds, which
have no roots but attach themselves to rocks by holdfasts.
 In the lowest zone, uncovered only during the spring tides, is the large brown alga
Laminaria, one of the kelps. Beneath its frondlikethalli live starfish, sea cucumbers,
limpets, mussels, and crabs.

12. The Temperate and Subtropical Evergreen Forests:

 In the middle latitudes, the prevailing winds carry moisture-laden air masses over the
west coasts of the continents, which receive substantial rainfall as a consequence.
 In much the same manner, the subtropical east coasts of the continents are kept wet by
the trade winds.
 In these regions, the combination of ample precipitation and comparatively mild
temperatures produces dense forests in which evergreen species, broadleaf and
coniferous, preponderate.
 These forests are sufficiently wet to earn some of them the name of rain forests.
 As in the more familiar rain forests of the tropics, many of the trees reach enormous size,
and epiphytes are common.
 Because more light penetrates the canopy, however, the vegetation of the understory and
forest floor is better developed than in the tropics.

13. The Temperate Deciduous Forests:

 Forests composed of deciduous species—ones that periodically shed their leaves—grow

in well-watered parts of the temperate zone in which a long, warm growing season
alternates with a cold winter.
 Precipitation, as either rain or snow, tends to fall throughout the year.
 Deciduous trees, shrubs, and woody vines, whether in the tropics or in the middle
latitudes, drop their leaves during a time of drought.
 For woody plants in the temperate zone, winter is such a time.
 In the spring, the forest floor is carpeted with wildflowers that bloom in the sunlight that
bathes the ground before the trees and shrubs regrow their shade-casting leaves.
 Temperate deciduous forests are almost entirely confined to the Northern Hemisphere,
where they occur in three major tracts.
 In Europe, the zone of deciduous and mixed forests stretches from the British Isles and
France through central and eastern Europe as far as the Ural Mountains.
 In East Asia, these forests clothe the Russian Far East, Korea, and Japan.
 Their counterparts in North America occupy most of the area from the Great Lakes to the
Atlantic Ocean and south to the Gulf of Mexico.
 Although widely separated, these deciduous forests are much alike, not only in
appearance but also in the groups of plants that compose them: birches, hornbeams,
alders, beeches, oaks, chestnuts, lindens, elms, walnuts, maples, and ashes.
14. The Tropical Dry Forests and Savannas:

 To many people who don’t live there, the tropics are a realm of jungles, deserts, and
palm-fringed beaches.
 Much more typical are the deciduous woodlands and savannas that occupy those regions
of the tropics in which a rainy season alternates with a dry one.
 Just as trees in temperate zone forests cast their leaves during the drought imposed by the
cold winter, deciduous trees in the tropics shed theirs during the protracted dry season.
 As a consequence, the same tropical forest that appears so lush and green during the rains
assumes a sere and lifeless aspect during the months of drought.
 Deciduous dry forests line much of the Pacific coast of Mexico and Central America.
 Similar forests cover most of Cuba, the Yucatán Peninsula, and western Ecuador.
 The llanos of Venezuela and Colombia are a region of extensive savanna grasslands,
parts of which flood during the rainy season.
 Enormous tracts of central Brazil, the camposcerrados, are covered by tropical
woodlands.
 Farther to the south are the vast, marshy pantanal and the savannas of the Gran Chaco,
which Brazil shares with Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay.

15. The Tropical Wet Forests:

 Tropical wet forests—the famous rain forests—grow in a great equatorial belt, where
conditions for life are as nearly uniform as is possible on land: Temperature,
precipitation, and day length hardly vary from season to season.
 The combination of warm temperatures, high rainfall, and days of constant length makes
for an environment in which plant growth and reproduction is essentially independent of
the time of year, so that leaves, flowers, and fruits are always available to feed the animal
population.
 These wet forests are frequently, if wrongly, called “jungles,” a name that properly
applies to the tangled growth that invades after primary forest is cut.
 Despite the myth of the rain forest as an impenetrable tangle of vegetation, the floor is so
deeply shaded that comparatively few plants can grow, except in the sun-drenched
clearings created when a tree falls from windthrow, landslide, or chain saw.
 The ground is carpeted with fallen leaves, twigs, and branches, which an army of termites
and other decomposers breaks down and makes available to the roots of the trees from
which they came.
 Because of this rapid recycling of nutrients back into the vegetation, rain forest soils are
notoriously poor.
 Lithosphere
 Lithosphere is outer part of Earth, consisting of the crust and the upper mantle.
 The term lithosphere is derived from Greek and means “rock layer.”
 The lithosphere is approximately 65 to 100 km (40 to 60 mi) thick and lies above the
layer known as the asthenosphere, which consists of softer, less rigid rocky material.
 Geologists regard the lithosphere as the relatively cool, outermost layer of the planet and
view it as a rigid shell.
 Although the rock compositions of the crust and the upper mantle differ, geologists prefer
to view the two parts as a single unit because both are brittle and they behave as a single
mass in the motion of the rocky plates that make up Earth’s surface layer.

Mineral:

 Mineral (chemistry), in general, is any naturally occurring chemical element or

compound, but in mineralogy and geology, chemical elements and compounds that have
been formed through inorganic processes.
 Petroleum and coal, which are formed by the decomposition of organic matter, are not
minerals in the strict sense.
 More than 3000 mineral species are known, most of which are characterized by definite
chemical composition, crystalline structure, and physical properties.
 They are classified primarily by chemical composition, crystal class, hardness, and
appearance (color, luster, and opacity).
 Mineral species are, as a rule, limited to solid substances, the only liquids being metallic
mercury and water.
 All the rocks forming the earth's crust consist of minerals. Metalliferous minerals of
economic value, which are mined for their metals, are known as ores.

Rocks

 Rock (mineral), naturally occurring solid material consisting of one or more minerals.
 Minerals are solid, naturally occurring chemical elements or compounds that are
homogenous, meaning they have a definite chemical composition and a very regular
arrangement of atoms.
 Rocks are everywhere, in the ground, forming mountains, and at the bottom of the
oceans.
 Earth’s outer layer, or crust, is made mostly of rock. Some common rocks include granite
and basalt.

Types of rocks:

 Rocks are divided into three main types, based on the ways in which they form.
  Igneous rocks are made of old rocks that have melted within the earth to form molten material
called magma.
 Magma cools and solidifies to become igneous rocks.
 Sedimentary rocks form as layers of material settle onto each other, press together, and harden.
 Metamorphic rocks are created when existing rocks are exposed to high temperatures and
pressures, and the rock material is changed, or metamorphosed, while solid.

1. Igneous rocks
2. Sedimentary rock
3. Metamorphic rock

Igneous rocks:

 Igneous rocks are rocks formed from a molten or partly molten material called magma.
 Magma forms deep underground when rock that was once solid melts.
 Overlying rock presses down on the magma, and the less dense magma rises through
cracks in the rock.
 As magma moves upward, it cools and solidifies.
 Magma that solidifies underground usually cools slowly, allowing large crystals to form.
 Magma that reaches Earth’s surface is called lava.
 Lava loses heat to the atmosphere or ocean very quickly and therefore solidifies very
rapidly, forming very small crystals or glass.
 When lava erupts at the surface again and again, it can form mountains called volcanoes.
 Igneous rocks commonly contain the minerals feldspar, quartz, mica, pyroxene,
amphibole, and olivine.

Types of igneous rocks (on the basis of minerals):

1. Acidic igneous rocks:

 It has an excess of acid forming radical silicon, around 80%.
 Rests are magnesium, sodium, potassium etc.
 It cools very fast hence makes high mountains.
 Example is granite.
2. Basic igneous rocks:
 Silicon content is lessor, around 40%.
 Magnesium is 20%
 Rests are 20%
 These rocks cool very slowly hence form plateaus
 Examples are basalt and dolesite.
 Types of igneous rocks(on the basis of situation)

1. Intrusive igneous rocks/ plutonic rocks:

 These are formed by solidification of magma at moderate depths beneath
the earth surface.
 Their cooling rate is very slow
 Example includes coarse-grained granite.
2. Extrusive igneous rocks:
 These rocks are form as a result of solidification of lava and asheson the
surface of the earth.
 Their cooling rate is very fast
 Example includes basalt

Sedimentary rocks:

 Sedimentary rock forms when loose sediment, or rock fragments, hardens.

 Geologists place sedimentary rocks into three broad categories
 Clastic rocks, which form from clasts, or broken fragments, of pre-existing rocks
and minerals.
 The most common types of clastic rocks are sandstone and shale (also
known as mudrock).

 Chemical rocks, which form when minerals precipitate, or solidify, from a

solution, usually seawater or lake water.
 The most common types of chemical rocks are called evaporites because
they form by evaporation of seawater or lake water.
 Organic rocks, which form from accumulations of animal and plant remains.
 The most common organic rock is limestone.

Note:It is common for sedimentary rocks to contain all three types of sediment.

 Most fossils are found in sedimentary rocks because the processes that form igneous and
metamorphic rocks prevent fossilization or would likely destroy fossils.

The elements dissolved in the water crystallize to form minerals such as gypsum and halite.

Metamorphic rocks:

 Metamorphic rock forms when pre-existing rock undergoes mineralogical and structural
changes resulting from high temperatures and pressures.
 These changes occur in the rock while it remains solid (without melting).
 The changes can occur while the rock is still solid because each mineral is
stable only over a specific range of temperature and pressure.
  If a mineral is heated or compressed beyond its stability range, it breaks down and forms
another mineral.
 For example, quartz is stable at room temperature and at pressures up to 1.9 gigapascals
(corresponding to the pressure found about 65 km [about 40 mi] underground).
 At pressures above 1.9 gigapascals, quartz breaks down and forms the mineral coesite, in
which the silicon and oxygen atoms are packed more closely together.

Plate tectonics:

Plate tectonic is a theory about continental drift, ocean spreading, volcanic activity, seismicity,
and structural features etc, developed in 1960. According to this theory lithosphere is not a
continuous shell; it is segmented, broken into about a dozen large rigid plates that are in motion
over the earth surface.

Movement of plates:

Plate boundaries take on three kinds of movements.

1. Divergent plate boundaries/ spreading:

 Divergent plate boundaries occur where two plates are moving apart from each other.
 When plates break apart, the lithosphere thins and ruptures to form a divergent plate
boundary.
 In the oceanic crust, this process is called seafloor spreading.

Effects in ocean crust:

 The splitting plates are spreading apart from each other.

 When seafloor spreading occurs, magma, or molten rock material, rises to the sea
floor surface along the rupture.
 As the magma cools, it forms new oceanic crust and lithosphere.
 The new lithosphere is less dense, so it rises, or floats, higher above older
lithosphere, producing long submarine mountain chains known as mid-ocean ridges.
 The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is an underwater mountain range created at a divergent
plate boundary in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Effects on LAND:

 Divergent boundaries on land cause rifting, in which broad areas of land are
uplifted, or moved upward.
 These uplifts and faulting along the rift result in rift valleys.
 Examples of rift valleys are the East African Rift Zone—
 Part of the Great Rift Valley that extends from Syria to Mozambique and
out to the Red Sea.
 In these areas, volcanic eruptions and shallow earthquakes are common.

2. Convergent plate boundaries:

 Convergent plate boundaries occur where plates are consumed, or recycled back into the
earth’s mantle.
 There are three types of convergent plate boundaries

1. Between two oceanic plates

2. Between an oceanic plate and a continental plate
3. Between two continental plates.

 Subduction zones are convergent regions where oceanic crust is thrust below either
oceanic crust or continental crust.
 Many earthquakes occur at subduction zones, and volcanic ridges and oceanic
trenches form in these areas.

Between two oceanic plates:

 In the ocean, convergent plate boundaries occur where an oceanic plate descends beneath
another oceanic plate.
 Chains of active volcanoes develop 100 to 150 km (60 to 90 mi) above the descending
slab as magma rises from under the plate.
 Also, where the crust slides down into the earth, a trench forms.
 Together, the volcanoes and trench form an intra-oceanic island arc and trench system.
 A good example of such a system is the Mariana Trench system in the western Pacific
Ocean, where the Pacific plate is descending under the Philippine plate.
 In these areas, earthquakes are frequent but not large.
 Stress in and behind the arc often causes the arc and trench system to move toward the
incoming plate, which opens small ocean basins behind the arc.
 This process is called back-arc seafloor spreading.
Between an oceanic plate and a continental plate:

 Convergent boundaries that occur between the ocean and land create continental margin
arc and trench systems near the margins, or edges, of continents.
 Volcanoes also form here. Stress can develop in these areas and cause the rock layers to
fold, leading to earthquake faults, or breaks in the earth’s crust called thrust faults.
 The folding and thrust faulting thicken the continental crust, producing high mountains.
 Many of the world’s large destructive earthquakes and major mountain chains, such as
the Andes Mountains of western South America, occur along these convergent plate
boundaries.

Between two continental plates:

 When two continental plates converge, the incoming plate drives against and under the
opposing continent.
 This often affects hundreds of miles of each continent and, at times, doubles the normal
thickness of continental crust.
 Colliding continents cause earthquakes and Form Mountains and plateaus. The collision
of India with Eurasia has produced the Himalayan Mountains and Tibetan Plateau.

3. Transform plate boundaries/ lateral plate movement:

 A transform plate boundary, also known as a transform fault system forms as plates slide
past one another in opposite directions without converging or diverging. .
 Canadian geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson studied the direction of faulting along fracture
zones that divide the mid-ocean ridge system and confirmed that transform plate
boundaries were different than convergent and divergent boundaries.
 Within the ocean, transform faults are usually simple, straight fault lines that form at a
right angle to ocean ridge spreading centers.
 As plates slide past each other, the transform faults can divide the centers of ocean ridge
spreading.
 By cutting across the ridges of the undersea mountain chains, they create steep cliff
slopes.
 Transform fault systems can also connect spreading centers to subduction zones or other
transform fault systems within the continental crust.
 As a transform plate boundary cuts perpendicularly across the edges of the continental
crust near the borders of the continental and oceanic crust, the result is a system such as
the San Andreas transform fault system in California.