In Lab 2, we studied the Earth’s crust and the processes that it goes through over times which relates to the theory of plate tectonics, as well as boundaries, hotspots, and forces. We begin with the PLate Tectonic Theory which developed along with many other theories to describe the world’s processes and common natural occurrences. In the theory, it describes how the Earth’s lithosphere is divided up into many different plates that push and pull which affects the creating of many of the Earth’s features like mountains, ocean ridges, earthquakes, etc. The plates have different boundaries with one such being the divergent boundary which helps recycle and create a new lithosphere as we discovered in lab. It does this by splitting apart due to …show more content…
This leads to the creation of chain of volcanoes and mountains along the edge of the continental plate which can be seen on Earth most clearly in the Ring of Fire. When the oceanic plate subducts under another oceanic plate however, an island chain is formed, and when two continental plates converge they create a tall mountain chain like that found in the Himalaya. The last boundary is a transform boundary, where the plates simply slide past each other in different directions. Each of these plate boundaries experiences a different force on the rocks which changes their shape. Compression is found in convergent plate boundaries and it squeezes the rocks together in a small area, tension is found in divergent plates and pulls the lithosphere increasing the length, and then shear which is found at transform boundaries and tears large segments of rocks apart with all the sliding. This was all important in the labs in order to understand the movements of the plates and what happens to them over time. Next we examine hotspots, which are areas which large geothermal activities that remain in a fixed