Plates, Rivers and Rock

Also called

plate tectonics · plate boundaries · divergent convergent transform · subduction zone · mid-ocean ridge · transform fault · river erosion · erosion transport deposition · sediment · delta · tectonics and erosion

Topics

• Plates are lithosphere: crust plus the rigid uppermost mantle
• The mantle is mostly solid rock that creeps slowly over geological time
• Divergent boundary: plates move apart and new oceanic crust forms at the ridge
• Convergent boundary: denser oceanic lithosphere sinks under a continent at a trench
• Water released by the sinking plate makes the mantle wedge partly melt and feeds a volcanic arc
• Transform boundary: plates slide past each other without a gap or new crust
• Erosion removes material, transport moves it, deposition lets it settle
• Flow competence: fast water carries coarse grains, slow water drops them
• Sediment is conserved: everything deposited came from eroded rock
• Mountain building and wearing down act on long, compressed timescales

About this model

A GLB file of about 1344 KB, shown in Lably's 3D viewer and, on a phone, placed in your room with AR. Credit: Lably original model. Contains adapted Tactiles models "Stratovolcano with subducting plate boundary" (stratovolcano.stl, Oceanic-crust.stl) by Tobias Wolfsteiner, tactiles.eu, CC BY-SA 4.0. This model is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. | CC BY-SA 4.0

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