Thursday, May 31, 2012

The Simple Art of Plate Tectonics

I am sorry if this bores you, but there is a font that I can only find on Blogger that I need for a school project. Yes, I'm still in school. No judging.
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Why are there volcanoes, you may ask?
Scattered across the land and sea?
Underwater,
Above the surface
With magma chambers
Like a fiery furnace?
And why are there earthquakes,
That shake the earth beneath
And why do they happen
Thousands of feet deep?

It's called plate tectonics.
Somewhere far below they're moving
And they're moving apart,
Together,
Next to
Each other.
They make mountains and trenches
They cause earthquakes and eruptions
And much, much more.

There are many things the plates are responsible for
But let's start with the theory of continental drift.
As fast as your fingernails grow
The plates move
Over a long period of time.
They were together
But it couldn't last forever
And in time they split.
The place called PANGAEA
Split into the world today
So now we're left with fossils
In places they normally wouldn't be
Leading us to this conclusion in this way.

So this leads us to the ocean
Where all this evidence can be seen
Where the ranges are new and the trenches are old.
The new crust forms mountains
The old crust subducts
And this is the movement that causes the continents to drift.
They have to keep moving to keep growing
And that's the process of seafloor spreading.

How is this possible and how are they moving?
It takes heat
A convection current
With energy to release.

Info:
Igneous rocks: Formed through cooling and solidification of lava.
Metamorphic rocks: Formed from intense pressure and heat.
Sedimentary rocks: Formed under heat and is a combination of many rocks.

(add next lesson, apparently number 7 never existed...)

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