Intro to Plate Tectonics
There are on average 2000 earthquakes around the world each year. The plate tectonics originate from deep within the planet. There are three main layers; the core, the mantle, and the crust. Tectonic activity is concentrated seven hundred km in the upper part of the planet. The Lithosphere is a rocky layer that is located in the mantle and the crust. The Asthenosphere is a solid but soft layer, it is important because heat from the core come up to the Asthenosphere and then it is moved around as if it was in a river. That then moves the plates. Plates move on average about as fast as it takes for fingernails to grow. The three types of plate boundaries are; Divergent, Convergent, and Transform. Divergent boundaries pull apart from each other and create narrow rift valleys. There are frequent earthquakes when this occurs and magma seeps from the ocean floor creating basalt or the crust.
Introduction to Mid-Ocean Ridges
The NOAA is the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration. The mid-ocean ridge system is sea floor spreading systems and new Earth is created. It is 65,000km long and 1,500km wide located where the ring of fire is. It uses divergent plate boundaries because that is the boundary that forms ridges. Plates pull apart from each other and forms cracks. Magma fills these cracks and then seeps, then being cooled by the ocean water. This cools and creates Basalt as the ocean floor. Hot lava solidifies on the outside but on the inside is still molten. This makes the lava able to move around and it creates a soft top layer on the crust called the Pillow Basalt. Juan de Fuca Ridge forms 600m of crust every one hundred years. The average rate of new crust is 10-20cm per year. While the ridge is formed it can also let sea water seep into the ridge, not touching the lava, sitting near the lava. The water heats up and it has dissolved minerals within the water that support a whole ecosystem on the ocean floor. The water minerals go up into the water and it used by the tube worms and those worms are a source for bottom feeders and fish. Chemosynthesis is the synthesis of organis compounds by energy derived from chemical reactions, without sunlight.