Earth, Our Environment - Class Notes

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Chapter 1, The Changing Planet - 03

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The Lithosphere & Plate Tectonics

The Lithosphere is also broken up into pieces, and these pieces of Earth are moving relative to the deep Earth and one another. This movement (on the order of a few cm per year) causes earthquakes and volcanoes and crustal deformation. Most of the activity is near the margins of the "plates".

Three types of plate margins exist:

• Divergent plate margins - plates move away from each other.
• Convergent plate margins - plates move toward each other.
• Transform plate margins - plates slide past one another.

Plate interactions produce changes in geology, volcanoes, earthquakes, etc. Over long periods of time, these actions create landscape. Landscape is in turn altered by climate and weather.

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