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    Unveiling The Earth's Moving Floor - Plate Tectonics and Beyond

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    Gustavo Villela

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Unveiling The Earth's Moving Floor - Plate Tectonics and Beyond

    Uploaded by

    Gustavo Villela
    1 views2 pages

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    Unveiling the Earth's Moving Floor_ Plate Tectonics and Beyond

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    1 views2 pages

    Unveiling The Earth's Moving Floor - Plate Tectonics and Beyond

    Uploaded by

    Gustavo Villela

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    Unveiling the Earth's Moving Floor: Plate Tectonics and

    Beyond
    Mid-Ocean Ridges: Mountain Ranges Under the Sea

    Imagine a massive underwater mountain range that winds its way around the Earth for over
    65,000 kilometers! That's what mid-ocean ridges are – enormous volcanic mountain ranges
    that form along the seafloor. These ridges are the world's longest mountain chain, even
    though most of it lies hidden beneath the waves.

    Seafloor Spreading: A Growing Earth

    Mid-ocean ridges are like giant conveyor belts, constantly creating new ocean floor through
    a process called seafloor spreading. Here's how it works:

    ● Molten rock (magma) rises from the Earth's mantle at the center of the ridges.
    ● As the magma erupts and cools, it hardens into new oceanic crust, pushing the older
    seafloor outwards on either side.
    ● This continuous spreading widens the ocean basins and constantly adds new
    material to Earth's crust.

    Deep-Ocean Trenches: Where Continents Dive

    On the opposite side of the mid-ocean ridges lie deep-ocean trenches – the deepest valleys
    on Earth. These trenches mark the boundaries where oceanic crust meets continental crust.

    Subduction: A Fiery Underworld Process

    Here's where things get dramatic:

    ● The denser oceanic crust collides with the lighter continental crust at a deep-ocean
    trench.
    ● Due to gravity, the denser oceanic plate is forced beneath the continental plate in a
    process called subduction.
    ● As the oceanic plate descends, it gets dragged down into the Earth's mantle, where
    the immense heat and pressure can melt some of the rock.

    Plate Tectonics: The Grand Unifier

    The theory of plate tectonics ties all these concepts together. It explains how the Earth's
    surface is broken into large, rigid plates that float on the hot, molten mantle below. These
    plates are constantly moving, driven by forces like convection currents in the mantle.

    The Connections:

    ● Mid-ocean ridges mark the boundaries where plates are diverging (moving apart) due
    to seafloor spreading.
    ● Deep-ocean trenches mark the boundaries where plates are converging (moving
    together) through subduction.
    ● The movement of plates causes earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mountain
    building along these boundaries.

    The Ever-Changing Earth

    Plate tectonics is a powerful force that continuously reshapes Earth's surface. The seafloor
    is constantly being created at mid-ocean ridges and destroyed at deep-ocean trenches,
    while continents drift across the globe, leaving a fascinating geological story in their wake.

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