Dr. Nelson's Plate Tectonics Paradigm Unit...

...and Geoff Hagopian's Solutions
[page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5, page 6, page 7, page 8]
Spinning globe


Exploration
 
Consider the locations of earthquakes and volcanoes around the world.
  • How are the locations alike and different? How might these two phenomena be related?
  • Check out http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Graphics/framework2.html

  • This is a terrific map! Ten tectonic plates are shown (the violet tites):
    1. Eurasion Plate
    2. Inod-Austrian Plate
    3. Pacific Plate
    4. North American Plate
    5. Cocos Plate
    6. Nazca Plate
    7. South American Plate
    8. African Plate
    9. Arabian Plate
    10. Antarctic Plate
    In the map above, the boundaries of tectonic plates are the heavy black jagged lines, the volcanoes are red.  It's interesting to compare these plates with land/water covering.  Various landmarks are labeled including the "ring of fire," which coincides with major volcanoes including Mt. St. Helens.  One "hot spot" exception to this rule are the Hawaiian Islands.  There is much interesting discussion about this at http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/PlateTectonics/description_plate_tectonics.html

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