Edible Plate Tectonics
You all get one Oreo.
Don’t eat it yet!
Don’t do anything with it yet, just look at it
with amazement, because what you are
looking at is….. The earth!
TECTONICS:
• From the Greek “tecton”
• builder
• architect
• The study of large features on Earth’s surface and the processes that
formed them.
PLATE TECTONICS:
• Large features…
• continents
• ocean basins
• mountain ranges
• and processes…
• earthquakes
• volcanic eruptions
• due to movement of plates of Earth’s outer shell.
Cracked Egg Shell!
Parks and Plates
©2002 Robert J. Lillie
Oreo plate tectonics
These four plate tectonic processes shape the earth and its landscapes
in different ways:
•
•
•
•
Divergent plate boundaries
Divergent plate boundaries
Transform plate boundaries
Hot spots
• Now…. carefully remove the top biscuit WITHOUT BREAKING IT!
• Once it is removed, you have to break it IN HALF. Try to make the two
halves similar in size.
DIVERGENT Plate Boundary:
Seafloor Spreading
Divergent Plate Boundary
Parks and Plates
©2002 Robert J. Lillie
DIVERGENT Plate Boundary:
Seafloor Spreading
Seafloor Spreading &
Plate Tectonics
• New ocean basins form from volcanism
• Ocean floor forms IN BETWEEN pieces that have split
• SEAFLOOR SPREADING
Convergent Plate Boundary
CONVERGENT Plate Boundary
Transform Plate Boundary
Parks and Plates
©2002 Robert J. Lillie
5 cm/year
x 100 years
= 5 metres per
century
Hot Spot
Parks and Plates
©2002 Robert J. Lillie
Mauna Kea
 14,000
feet
Mauna Loa
 14,000
feet
TALLER THAN
MOUNT EVEREST!
18,000 ft
below sea
level
14,000 feet
above sea level
Divergent Plate Boundary:
Seafloor Spreading
Parks and Plates
©2002 Robert J. Lillie
Parks and Plates
©2002 Robert J.
Lillie
Convergent Plate Boundary:
Subduction
Transform Plate Boundary:
Transform (Strike-Slip) Faulting
Parks and Plates
©2002 Robert J. Lillie
Hot Spot:
Plate Interior
Parks and Plates
©2002 Robert J. Lillie
Name the four processes!
• Which four plate tectonic processes shape the earth?