FIG 30. Diagram of the internal structure of the Earth.
Knowledge of how tectonic plates interact provides the key to understanding the movement history of the Earth’s crust. However, most people are much more familiar with the geographical patterns of land and sea, which do not coincide with the distribution of tectonic plates. From the point of view of landscapes and scenery, coastlines are always going to be key features because they define the limits of the land; we make no attempt in this book to consider submarine scenery in detail.
The upper part of the lithosphere is called the crust. Whereas the distinction between the lithosphere and the asthenosphere is based upon mechanical properties related to temperature and pressure (see above), the distinction between the crust and the lower part of the lithosphere is based upon composition. Broadly speaking, there are two types of crust that can form the upper part of the lithosphere: continental and oceanic. An individual tectonic plate may include just one or both kinds of crust.
Continental crust underlies land areas and also many of the areas covered by shallow seas. Geophysical work shows that this crust is typically about 35 km thick, but may be 80–90 km thick below some high plateaus and mountain ranges. The highest mountains in Britain are barely noticeable on a scale diagram comparing crustal thicknesses (Fig. 31). Continental crust is made of rather less dense materials than the oceanic crust or the mantle, and this lightness is the reason why land surfaces and shallow sea floors are elevated compared to the deep oceans. Much of the continental crust is very old (up to 3–4 billion years), having formed early in the Earth’s life when lighter material separated from denser materials within the Earth and rose to the surface.
Oceanic crust forms the floors of the deep oceans, typically 4 or 5 km below sea level. It is generally 5–10 km thick and is distinctly denser than continental crust. Oceanic crust only forms land where volcanic material has been supplied to it in great quantity (as in the case of Iceland), or where other important local forces in the crust have caused it to rise (as is the case in parts of Cyprus). Oceanic crust is generally relatively young (only 0–200 million years old), because its higher density and lower elevation ensures that it is generally subducted and destroyed at plate boundaries that are convergent (see below).
Figure 29 shows the major pattern of tectonic plates on the Earth today. The Mercator projection of this map distorts shapes, particularly in polar regions, but we can see that there are seven very large plates, identified by the main landmasses located on their surfaces. The Pacific plate lacks continental crust entirely, whereas the other six main plates each contain a large continent (Eurasia, North America, Australia, South America, Africa and Antarctica) as well as oceanic crust. There are a number of other middle-sized plates (e.g. Arabia and India) and large numbers of micro-plates, not shown on the world map.
Figures 29 and 32 also identify the different types of plate boundary, which are distinguished according to the relative motion between the two plates. Convergent plate boundaries involve movement of the plates from each side towards the suture (or central zone) of the boundary. Because the plates are moving towards each other, they become squashed together in the boundary zone. Sometimes one plate is pushed below the other in a process called subduction, which often results in a deep ocean trench and a zone of mountains and/or volcanoes, as well as earthquake activity (Fig. 32). The earthquake that happened on the morning of 26 December 2004 under the sea off western Sumatra was the strongest anywhere in the world for some 40 years. It seized world attention particularly because of the horrifying loss of life caused by the tsunami waves that it generated. This earthquake was the result of a sudden lithosphere movement of several metres on a fault in the convergent subduction zone where the Australian plate has been repeatedly moving below the Eurasian plate.
FIG 31. Scale diagram comparing average thicknesses of oceanic and continental crust and lithosphere.
In other cases the plate boundary is divergent, where the neighbouring plates move apart and new material from deeper within the Earth rises to fill the space created. The new oceanic crust is created by the arrival and cooling of hot volcanic material from below. The mid-Atlantic ridge running through Iceland, with earthquakes and volcanic activity, is one of the nearest examples to Britain of this sort of plate boundary.
Other plate boundaries mainly involve movement parallel to the plate edges and are sometimes called transform boundaries. The Californian coast zone is the classic example but there are many others, such as the transform boundary between the African and Antarctic plates. In some areas, plate movement is at an oblique angle to the suture and there are components of divergence or convergence as well as movement parallel to the boundary.
Britain today sits in the stable interior of the western Eurasian plate, almost equidistant from the divergent mid-Atlantic ridge boundary to the west and the complex convergent boundary to the south where Spain and northwest Africa are colliding. In its earlier history the crust of Britain has been subjected to very direct plate boundary activity: the results of convergent activity in Devonian and Carboniferous times (between 416 and 299 million years ago) are visible at the surface in southwest England, and in Ordovician to Devonian times (between 490 and 360 million years ago) in Wales, northwest England and Scotland.
FIG 32. Diagram illustrating the movement processes of plates (not to scale).
UNDERSTANDING SURFACE MOVEMENTS
We have been considering the large movement systems that originate within the Earth. There are also more local movement systems operating on the Earth’s surface, which are linked to a very variable degree to the large-scale movements of plate tectonics. To explore this complex linkage further, it will be helpful to look now at different processes that may combine to cause particular local movements.
Horizontal movements as part of convergence, divergence or lateral transfer
Tectonic plates are recognised by their rigidity, so there is relatively little horizontal movement between points within the same plate compared to the deformation seen in plate boundary zones. This extreme deformation may involve folding and fracturing of the rock materials, addition of new material from below, or absorption of material into the interior during subduction.
Nonetheless, deformation is not restricted solely to plate boundaries, and does occur to a lesser extent within the plates. In some cases, major structures that originally formed along a plate boundary can become incorporated into the interior of a plate when prolonged collision causes two plates to join. Southern England includes the remains of a former convergent plate boundary and contains many examples of structures of this sort (particularly around Dorset and the Isle of Wight). These structures have often been reactivated long after they first formed in order to accommodate forces along the new plate boundary via deformation within the plate. Conversely, changes of internal stress patterns can sometimes lead to the splitting of a plate into two, forming a new, initially divergent plate boundary. Many of the oil- and gas-containing features of the North Sea floor originated when a belt of divergent rift faults formed across a previously intact plate.
It needs to be stressed that the patterns of deformation (fracturing and folding) due to these plate motions occur at a wide range of different scales, from centimetres to thousands of kilometres. Sometimes they are visible at the scale of an entire plate boundary, such as the enormous Himalayan mountain chain that marks the collision of India with Asia.
The effects of features as large as plate boundaries on landscapes persist over hundreds of millions of years, long after the most active movement has ceased. For example, parts of southwestern England, Wales and the Scottish Highlands are underlain by bedrocks that were formed in convergent