Lab 3

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Apr 3, 2024

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Name(s)-up to 3: Maddie Irwin and Liam Casey Lab: Exploring Plate Tectonics and Hot Spots General instructions: Read all the information and follow directions as given on each exercise. Use red fonts for ALL your responses. To help you navigate better the lab, the exercises you need to respond are in italics font. Part I. Exploring and relating Alfred Wegener’s Evidence for Continental Drift (Textbook pages: 15 th edition-pages 94-99) After reading about the evidence for Continent Drift from your textbook and/or class recording #14, answer the following exercises in your own words. 1) What characteristic or ability Mesosaurus had that Wegener used as evidence to support his Continental Drift Hypothesis? Explain how he use that evidence? The Mesosaurus is a reptile whose fossil remains are limited to eastern South America and southern Africa. Scientists believe that Mesosaurus lived in freshwater lakes and shallow bays, meaning that it couldn’t have swam across the salty Atlantic Ocean. Wegener argued South America and Africa must have been joined and supported this claim because of the distribution of other types of fossils as well. The structural features and habitats would make it impossible for these organisms to cross such vast distances, so Wegner’s hypothesis provided an explanation for this. 2) Explain why the Glossopteris fern was a strong piece of evidence to support Alfred Wegener’s continental drift hypothesis. The Glossopteris fern was a strong piece of evidence since fossils of tropical plants found on an island with a cold climate provided evidence that the climate changed because the island moved. Part II. Exploring the evidence (features, landforms, and processes) that occur at each type of tectonic plate boundary (divergent, convergent and transform) 1) Understanding ocean-ocean divergent plate boundarie s ( (Textbook pages: 15 th edition-pages 101-104). The evidence helps scientists trace the location where tectonic plates meet! Go to: https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/earth/plates-on-the-move2/game The yellow lines show plate boundaries. Click on the + sign labeled the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, next to Greenland (you can also find out this location by putting the cursor over the + signs until the Mid-Atlantic Ridge shows up). Answer the question by selecting the correct response. 1

a. Include a screenshot here showing your response to the question. b. Read the information provided with the correct response. What are the landforms, processes and other features that form as a result of the tectonic plates moving in that direction? Since the two plates slowly move apart earthquakes can occur and magma rises from the mantle below. The magma erupts from volcanoes that form between the plates and cools to form a new crust. Causes volcanoes to erupt and islands to form. 2) Understanding the evidence (features, landforms, and processes) for transform plate boundarie s (Textbook pages: 15 th edition-pages 107-108). Go again to: https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/earth/plates-on-the-move2/game 2

Click on the + sign that is over San Francisco, California, USA (should be the + sign that when the cursor is over it, reads as “One early morning, over a 100 years ago…”) a. Include a screenshot here showing your response to the question. b. Read the information provided with the correct response. What are the landforms, processes, and other features that form as a result of the tectonic plates moving in that direction? When one plate slides against another it gets stuck and pressure builds up. When the plate finally breaks loose earthquakes happen and the ground trembles and may crack apart. Slips can create large cracks in the ground. Faults also come loose from slippage. c. Go over the same site again ( https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/earth/plates-on-the-move2/game and find another location on the Earth where there is a transform boundary, like the one in San Francisco, CA, USA. i. What other location (that is not San Francisco, CA) shows a transform boundary? Turkey, the Izmit Earthquake, 1999 ii. Does the location you just found for the exercise above have the same landforms, processes, and features that happen in San Francisco due to the transform plate motion? Yes, it does. 3

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Part III. Compare all three types of convergent plate boundaries motion . How? Drag the following terms into their correspondent location in the Venn diagram (ovals connected) on the next page. You can stretch the ovals, enlarge as needed, and add other concepts if you think they are missing. (Hint: Hint: From the 15 th ed of textbook, pages 104-107, and assoc. smart figures 4.15 and 4.16 are very useful). Plus, to help you visualize the task asked, I inserted for you the terms written in red in their correspondent locations. 4 Oceanic-oceanic (O-O) Continental-Continental (C-C) Example: Himalayas Two continents ensue. Water triggers melting No volcanic activity Example: West of South America Mountains O-C & C-C O-O & O-C Faults Partial Melting (magma) Volcanic Island Arc Earthquakes Example: Aleutian Islands Deep -ocean trench Subduction Continental Volcanic arc Oceanic-continental (O-C)

Part IV. Hot Spots or Intraplate Dynamics (Note: A Hot spot location is not a plate boundary, meaning that particularly, volcanic activity, is the result of magma rising from a mantle plume, and not because of a process induced by tectonic plate boundaries. Examples of places where volcanic activity is explained by hot spots, and not plate boundaries, include Hawaii, Yellowstone, and Galápagos). 1) Answer the following questions after reading the section of the Plate Tectonic Chapter titled “Evidence: mantle Plume and Hot Spots” (page 112 of the 15 th edition) and understanding Figure 4.26. Need help visualizing the motion? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1C2rYwTxWs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDsIj_5uBtQ https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2021-10-06/the-underwater-hotspot-feeding-la-palmas- volcano-will-create-new-islands.html or the class recordings. The diagram below shows several volcanic islands formed by a hot spot and the ages of the youngest volcanic rocks (Ma=millions of years ago). Use the diagram to answer questions A-E below. Notice the pattern of ages of rocks: A) Where is the hot spot now: below A or B or C or D island (select only one)? D B) Which of the islands have active volcanoes: A or B or C or D? (Select only one) B,C,D C) Is the tectonic plate moving towards the NE or SW? Explain the evidence of why the tectonic plate is moving that direction. SW D) Put this next island (below) at about the location where an island will appear in the future relative to islands A, B, C and D E) Explain how the theory of hot spots supports the existence of tectonic plates on Earth. By the way the volcanic Island are chain has moved. And how the Island furthest for the hot spot has no volcanic activity. 5 Next Island

Lab 3

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