2.1 volcanos and earthquakes Flashcards
What ideas does the theory of plate tectonics encapsulate
- Continents drift over the surface of the earth
- Sea floor is removed and destroyed along continental margins
- Sea floor is continuously regenerated at mid-ocean ridges
Label the structure of the earth
What is the crust
Relatively thin and rocky, broken up into plates
What is the mantle
- Has the properties of a solid but can flow very slowly
- It is plastic
- Up to 3800*C
- Makes up 82% of the earth’s volume
- 2900 km from the earth’s surface
What is the outer core
- Made up of iron and nickel
- Liquid
- 5100 miles from the earth’s surface
What is the inner core
- Made up of solid iron and nickel
- Up to 5500*C
- 6400 kilometres from the earth’s surface
What is a continental plate
- Crust that makes continents (dry land)
- Made of granite
- 1500 million years old
- Between 25-100km thick
- Less dense then oceanic crust
What is oceanic crust
- Crust under oceans
- Less than 200 million years old
- Made up of basalt
- 5-10 km thick
- Denser than continental crust
What are the three reasons plates move
- Convection currents
- Slab pull
- Ridge push
What is convection current
- When plates are floating on extremely hot mantle, the intense heat in the earth’s core gives rise to convection currents that cause the plates to move
What is slab pull
- Old oceanic plate, sinking into the mantle at destructive boundaries, pulls the rest of the plate down with it
What is ridge push
- New material formed at constructive plate boundaries forces the plates away
What is a constructive plate boundary
- Two plates move apart from each other causing sea floor spreading
- New oceanic crust is formed, creating mid-ocean ridges
- Volcanic activity is common
What is a convergant/ destructive plate boundary
- When the oceanic crust sinks below the contintental crust due to its greater density
- Deep sea trenches and island-arcs are formed
- The continental crust is folded into fold mountains
- Volcanic activity is common
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What is a convergant/ collision plate boundary
- Two continental crusts collide
- As neither can sink they are folded up into fold mountains
What is a conservative plate boundary
- Two plates slip sideways past each other but neither land is destroyed nor created
What is an earthquake
- A sudden movement in rock
- Relatively near the earth’s surface along a zone of geological weakness called a fault
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Describe how earthquakes occur (elastic energy)
- Most earthquakes occur where plates meet in subduction zones
- Slow movement of plates deform crustal rocks and produces stored elastic energy
- When the stored stress exceeds the strength of the fault it fractures
- The sudden release of energy produces seismic waves
- The fracture of the crust followed by the elastic rebound either side of the fault produces ground shaking
What is the focus of an earthquake
- The orginal point of the earthquake where the two plates have moved relative to each other
What is the epicentre of an earthquake
- The point on the earth’s surface directly above the focus
How is the energy recorded from an earthquake
- From a seismometer
Why could a big earthquake occur
- Large amount of movement at the fault
- A rupture occuring over a long distance
What does the destruction of an earthquake depend on
- Distance
- Building quality
- Duration of shaking
- population density
- local conditions
- Why is ground shaking a primary hazard from earthquakes
- What are the four types of wave
- Due to seismic waves
- Primary, secondary, Reighley and Love waves are the seismic wave types
Why is local conditions an earthquake hazard
- Waves can be amplified by ridge crests as ground mtoions in soil are amplified in amplitude and duration
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