“OCEAN BASIN EVOLUTION”

Sea Floor Spreading, The Origin of Ocean Basins

Key terms for lecture topic #4, CHAPTER 3

Think about human history of thought and discovery…………..

•  ALFRED WEGENER 1880 – 1930: Continental Drift, Pangaea, Paleoclimates, Fit, Stratigraphy, Laurasia, Gondwanaland, 200 million years BP

•  SEISMOLOGY: 1950's, Body Waves:(P-Waves, Primary Waves, Compressional Waves) and (S-Waves, Secondary Waves, Shear Waves)

•  OUTER LAYERS OF THE EARTH: Crust, Moho, Mantle, Lithosphere, Asthenosphere

•  OCEAN CRUST vs CONTINENTAL CRUST (know the differences!)

•  SFS: Proposed by Harry Hess in 1962, Rates, Subduction, Proofs…… age dating, sediment thickness, distribution of

e-quakes and volcanoes, heat flow, magnetic field and polar reversals

•  PLATE TECTONICS: 1965 – 1968, Boundary types and processes, Hot Spots, Microplates, Trailing Edge and Leading Edge Margins, (Active vs Passive & Immature vs Mature)

•  Understand what Alfred Wegener knew, and did not know.

•  Marine Sediments next…….