Tectonic (lithospheric) Plates: Commonly confused with crust

1min 55s Novice

What are the tectonic (lithospheric) plates? What is the crust?

Video lecture on four basic types of plate tectonic boundaries: divergent (spreading), transform (strike-slip), and convergent (subduction and continental collision) types of plate boundaries. Clarifies what the tectonic, or lithospheric plates are. Lithospheric plates have two parts consisting of crust and upper mantle. This was recorded at a workshop for middle-school Earth-science teachers in 2006 by Dr. Robert Butler

Keypoints:

  • Tectonic plate is the cold, brittle upper layer of the Earth.
  • Has two parts: (1) crust and (2) cold, brittle upper part of the upper mantle.
  • Two varieties of crust: continental and oceanic

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The subduction zone iswhere two tectonic (lithospheric) plates come together, one subducting (diving) beneath the other. The plates are locked together and periodically overcome the friction causing the leading edge of the overlying plate to surge back, lifting a wall of water producting a tsunami.

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New oceanic crust is created at this boundary when basalt magma, formed in the mantle, rises into fractures in the crust and solidifies. Spreading ridges are high elevation because the young oceanic plate at the ridge crest is hot and less dense than the older, colder and more dense plate on the flanks of the ridge. 

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A transform fault is a type of strike-slip fault wherein the relative horizontal slip is accommodating the movement between two ocean ridges or other tectonic boundaries. They are connected on both ends to other faults.

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The Earth has 3 main layers based on chemical composition: crust, mantle, and core. Other layers are defined by physical characteristics due to pressure and temperature changes. This animation tells how the layers were discovered, what the layers are, and a bit about how the crust differs from the tectonic (lithospheric) plates, a distinction confused by many.

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People often use the terms crust and tectonic plates interchangeably. It can be confusing because they are paired, and yet they are distinct from each other.

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