- Convection in the Mantle (heat driven)
- Ridge push (gravitational force at the spreading ridges)
- Slab pull (gravitational force in subduction zones)
What causes tectonic plates to move a level?
Convection Currents | A Level Geography. The plates that make up the Earth’s crust are continually moving at around 2-3cm per year. … When it reaches the crust it is forced sideways as often it can not pass through the crust.
The friction between the convection current and the crust
causes the tectonic plate to move.
What are the 3 causes of plate movement?
Mantle dynamics, gravity, and Earth’s rotation taken
altogether causes the plate movements. However, convectional currents are the general thought for the motion.
What are the major causes and effects of tectonic plate movements?
They have also caused faults, cracks in the earth’s crust. Shifts along a fault can also cause earthquakes or violent jolts in the area around it. In coastal areas undersea earthquakes can cause huge waves known as Tsunamis to erupt. Plate tectonics
cause folding of rock layers into mountains
.
What causes tectonic plates to move quizlet?
convection currents
are a process in which the materials inside the mantle heat up and rise to the surface whilst the cooler liquid sinks; as it sinks it then heats up and rises again. This continuous cycle is established: hot liquid rising, cold liquid descending. These currents cause the tectonic plates to move.
What is the main cause of plate movement?
Earth’s crust, called the lithosphere, consists of 15 to 20 moving tectonic plates. …
The heat from radioactive processes within the planet’s interior
causes the plates to move, sometimes toward and sometimes away from each other. This movement is called plate motion, or tectonic shift.
How fast do tectonic plates move?
They can move at
rates of up to four inches (10 centimeters) per year
, but most move much slower than that. Different parts of a plate move at different speeds. The plates move in different directions, colliding, moving away from, and sliding past one another. Most plates are made of both oceanic and continental crust.
What happens when tectonic plates move?
When the plates move
they collide or spread apart allowing the very hot molten material called lava to escape from the mantle
. When collisions occur they produce mountains, deep underwater valleys called trenches, and volcanoes. … The Earth is producing “new” crust where two plates are diverging or spreading apart.
How many tectonic plates are there?
how many tectonic plates are there? There are major, minor and micro tectonic plates. There are
seven major plates
: African, Antarctic, Eurasian, Indo-Australian, North American, Pacific and South American.
Why do earthquakes occur on conservative plate boundaries?
A conservative plate boundary, sometimes called a transform plate margin, occurs where plates slide past each other in opposite directions, or in the same direction but at different speeds. Friction is eventually overcome and the plates slip past in a sudden movement.
The shockwaves created produce an earthquake
.
What are the 4 types of tectonic plate movement?
- Divergent: extensional; the plates move apart. Spreading ridges, basin-range.
- Convergent: compressional; plates move toward each other. Includes: Subduction zones and mountain building.
- Transform: shearing; plates slide past each other. Strike-slip motion.
What are the 5 causes of earthquake?
- Volcanic Eruptions. The main cause of the earthquake is volcanic eruptions.
- Tectonic Movements. The surface of the earth consists of some plates, comprising of the upper mantle. …
- Geological Faults. …
- Man-Made. …
- Minor Causes.
How do plate movements affect humans?
Plate tectonics affects humans in several important ways. What would Earth be like without plate tectonics? We’d have many fewer
earthquakes
and much less volcanism, fewer mountains, and probably no deep-sea trenches. … In other words, the Earth would be a much different place.
Why do scientists believe that some tectonic plates are moving away from each other?
The continents do move as new material from the center of the Earth rises,
hardens and pushes older pieces of the Earth away from each other
. They called their theory “sea floor spreading.” The theory explains that as the sea floor spreads, the tectonic plates are pushed and pulled in different directions.
What moves tectonic plates quizlet?
Plate Tectonics – pieces of Earth’s lithosphere are in constant slow motion, driven by
convection currents in the mantle
.
Where are the tectonic plates moving?
The
Pacific Plate is moving to the northwest
at a speed of between 7 and 11 centimeters (cm) or ~3-4 inches a year. The North American plate is moving to the west-southwest at about 2.3 cm (~1 inch) per year driven by the spreading center that created the Atlantic Ocean, the Mid Atlantic Ridge.
