Global Tectonics

• The Continents and its Features

o Features: mountain belts, cratons, shields, and stable platforms
o In Kingston, we are on stable platforms (limestone rocks), but we are very close
to the Canadian Shield
o Morphologically speaking, each feature looks different
▪ Lots of dead rock material in the shield
• The Ocean Floor and its Features
o Features: continental margins, deep ocean basins, and oceanic ridges
o Continental margins are slopes that lead down to the deep ocean and the flatter
area between slopes, known as deep ocean basins
o Oceanic ridges get larger and larger until it approaches a dividing ridge, called a
mid-oceanic ridge
o Continental margins:
▪ A shelf that goes out into the ocean
▪ Fishermans find this beneficial because fish like to live right on the shelf
margin
▪ The continental rise connects to the continental slope which connects to
the continental shelf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_margin

o Seamounts
▪ Small volcanoes
▪ Some stick out of water, while others stay underneath
o Oceanic Ridges
▪ First mechanism that led to the understanding of plate tectonics
▪ First discovered after WWI when the ocean floor began to be mapped
• Continental Drift
o 1858: Antonio Snider-Pellegrini proposed that the continents have moved over
time
▪ He came up with two maps, showing that areas like South America and
Africa connect to each other – He was ridiculed because he had no way
to prove it
▪ What Antonio Snider-Pellegrini did not take into consideration was the
continental shelves, which actualy fit better to each continent
 o 1912: Alfred Wegener also believed the continents move and tried to prove it
▪ He came up with the concept of Pangea (large continent where all
continents connected)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea

▪ Evidence:
• Fossils: there were similar species that lived on every continent,
meaning they most likely lived on one large continent in the past
• Rocks and Mountains: Appalachian Mountains matched with
northwest mountain range in Africa
• Climates: Glacial areas were all located in the south, and the coal
swamps in the north
▪ However, no one believed Wegener either because he did not have a
process to explain how it actually happened
• It was also a huge distance for planets to move and was not
clearly supported by physics either
▪ 1930: Wegener goes to Greenland to look for fossil evidence, however,
he was never seen again
• His continental drift theory was debated for the next 30 years
• There are many geological global plates located under each continent and ocean
o The plate boundaries are not always at the continental boundaries
o There are areas where the plates are very close to the continental masses
o Boundaries:
▪ Sliding : There are margins where two plates are sliding against each
other
▪ Divergent: When two plates move away from each other
 ▪ Convergent: When two plates move towards each other

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tectonic_plates

• Divergent Boundaries: When two plates move away from each other
o The mantle and magma rises as the plates move apart and creates volcanic
eruptions on the ocean floor
o Also adds new igneous rocks on the ocean floor, both intrusively and extrusively
▪ This has been going on for 180 million years since the breakup of Pangea
o In some parts, there is more magma, while other parts have less
▪ More magma means it has a greater velocity, but both are still using in
same direction
▪ This creates a zone of weakness between the two spreading ridges
▪ Fracture zones, where two rocks are sliding against each other going to
same direction
▪ Transform fault: This also results in one body of rock moving in one
direction and one moving in the other direction
• This creates seismic waves that generate earthquakes
 http://www.passmyexams.co.uk/GCSE/physics/divergent-boundaries.html

• J. Tuzo Wilson
o Known as the Father of Global Tectonics and was able to prove the ideas
proposed by Antonio Snider-Pellegrini and Alfred Wegener
o He came up with the reason that the mantle rises underneath the continent,
which causes the continent to diverge in two different direction
▪ Generates new rock and volcanos, but results in the continent to move in
opposite directions, diverging into two new tectonic plates
o Wilson Cycle:
▪ When continents are stretched apart until they form a large oceanic basin
between two new land masses
▪ These two continents will then eventually converge back together
http://geography-student.blogspot.com/2012/02/wilson-cycle-opening-and-closing-of.html