It’s amazing that this video is 5 years old, suggesting that the ridge push/slab pull model is at least that old. And still the older plate tectonics being driven by convection currents is still being taught. It like we’re teaching that the earth is still at the centre of the solar system and universe. People need to share the hell out of this video. It’s clear and concise and easy enough for younger minds to understand.
This is by FAR the best explanation, with visuals to explain tectonic plate motion and the forces required to accomplish those motions. The convection model just has not satisfied me. Imagining the immense forces required to Move such massive pieces it makes much more sense that gravity play a bigger role in the process. Thanks for posting this!
Please update. Recent research shows tidal forces from the Moon may have a major effect on heating the interior of the Earth and also driving the plate motion.
At 4.52 in the video "In this example, lithospheric mantle rock in the subducting plate, at 150 kilometers depth, is 1000 degrees cooler than the asthenospheric mantle at the same depth"... How can that be? That after millions of years (3 million years if the descent is 5 centimeter/year) the heat balance hasn´t been reached? I have tried to search (google) the sources for this. Anyone know a good source?
Warming by conduction requires as much time as cooling by conduction. Rocks are poor conductors of heat; in fact, they are good insulators which is why insulation for houses has an “R rating” indicating the equivalent thickness of rock in inches. If it takes ~80 million years for the ocean plate to cool and reach thermal equilibrium after formation, it will take 10s of millions of years to warm by thermal conduction during subduction, even though the subducting plate is heated from both the top and the bottom. So 3 million years of descent is a very short time compared to that required to thermal equilibrium. References: Currie, et al., 2002; Thermal models of the Mexico subduction zone: Implications for the megathrust seismogenic zone, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 107, NO. B12, 2370, doi:10.1029/2001JB000886. and F. Klingelhoefer, et al., 2010; Limits of the seismogenic zone in the epicentral region of the 26 December 2004 great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake: Results from seismic refraction and wide-angle reflection surveys and thermal modeling, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 115, B01304, doi:10.1029/2009JB006569.
Thank you very much for the answer. I will check those references for sure. I was just so surprised by it - it does not intuitively make sense, if one imagines this mass "baked" in an oven (surrounded by 1000 degrees hotter environment) for that long time. Very nice video by the way.
I do not understand the movement about the pacific plate (late part of video). I believed the pacific plate outside of western USA (california etc) moves eastward (down under the landmass of USA), but here the movement is westward - away from this landmass...?
The Pacific Plate is moving in a northwest direction at a speed of between 7 and 11 centimeters (cm) or ~3-4 inches a year.The Hawaiian Islands sit in the middle of the northern half of this plate and give evidence for direction of plate motion. You might be thinking of the Juan de Fuca Plate that is diving, or subducting beneath the Pacific Northwest, also known as Cascadia, which lies on the North American Plate. The Juan de Fuca Plate/Cascadia regionhas gotten a lot of press coverage due to the similarity of the tectonic setting to Japan. You can learn more about the Pacific Northwest in this animation: ua-cam.com/video/_belQwGNolY/v-deo.html
That explains it. I have seen nick zentner´s videos about the situation outside of washington state, and assumed that the juan de fuca plate movement was showing the general movement of the whole pacific plate. Also with the deep underwater peru-chile trench outside of chile etc - similar to the mariana trench outside of japan etc, I assumed they were subduction zone traits (those two deep trenches, that is).
This explains when an oceanic plate comes together with a continental plate. The oceanic plate is denser and thinner than the more-buoyant thicker continental plate. When they come together the oceanic plate "subducts" (or dives) beneath the continental plate. When two continental plates come together, they crash and build higher mountains, as they do in this animation of the Himalayan Mountains: ua-cam.com/video/5VjaSFEf4BU/v-deo.html
@@michelcoil1882 The video is about what drives plate motion. Not the effects of plate collisions. The video did a good job explaining what it set out to.
shamefully incompetent explanation. push-pull is not the "driver," but a secondary segment in a chain of events starting hundreds if not thousands of kilometers deeper.
There is still debate on what the dynamics are. Two more mainstream variations on what is the driving dynamics are Convection theory vs Plume theory. Both suggesting very different points. But there is quite a lot more exotic and alternative theories as well. Currently we didn't have conclusive answer on the process at all...
I don't believe in the subduction concept. Look at the map of the oceanic lithosphere age. You will see that mostly young (and relatively light) ocean crust goes down, but not old (and relativeky dense) ocean crust. If there is no subduction -- there is no ridiculous "plate tectonics" which should be forgotten as the biggest mistake in geosciences in the 20th century. The Earth is gradually expanding. Don't be afraid to accept a much more realistic Earth evolution.
In this video the continent stays stationairy. There is more to slabs then pull and push. The zone from the bending point ( "hinge" ) to tilted sinking slab moves towards the midocean ridge. So the whole sinking slab moves in the direction of the midocean ridge . The gap behind the slab is inmediately filled up with mantle material , taking the continent that floats on it with it . To keep the earth spherical, mantle material must be moving around the subduction zone. Driving mechanism and 3-D circulation of plate tectonics. from Warren B. Hamilton (1925-2018) www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=001431978847466539083:xsldadcvvvo&q=www.mantleplumes.org/WebDocuments/HamiltonDriving2007.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjC8u63lu3xAhXGCuwKHULEAE8QFjACegQIABAB&usg=AOvVaw163ruOas3-X6eW7lMxhcxg Could you make a new video with something in it like figure 17 from this article ? Rollback subduction should be a known phenomen at IRIS.
@@IRISEarthquakeScience About convection If both Amerikas are moving westward , what explains the eastern movement of the lesser Antilles or Sandwitch isles. A small convection cell turning the other way ? The westward movement of the Amerikas created the atlantic ocean. The cell west of the Atlantic MOR must have been growing half the size of the atlantic. How ? By "eating" from the Nazca cell ? The cell east of the Atlantic MOR must have grown too. how ? On east and west of Afrika is a MOR, meaning an upwelling place of a convectional cell. Afrika should be compressed, or should have a subduction zone on both Atlantic and Indian ocean coast. Witch is not the case. Roll back subduction of the Nazca plate pulls America Westward . The MOR in the Atlantic stays in the middle because it will be constant the weakest point, where the asthenosphere can fill up the gap that becoms lithosphere. Not because it is the "inbetween " of two convection cells. There is no convection cell east of the Atlantic MOR , (nor west) . Africa has no subduction zones. Remnants of old subducted slabs are still visible by seismic tomography. These remnants obstruct convection. The "graveyard" of slabs is made visible by www.atlas-of-the-underworld.org/
Brilliant. I'm sick of trying to explain to kids and other teachers that the textbook is wrong. Convection currents as the driver is STILL in textbooks. It's STILL in the curriculum (though ridge push and slab pull now get a minor mention)
Do you have paper with computer simulation that explains the dynamics SIMPLY by ridge push and slab pull? Cause this dynamic alone without validations does not sound brilliant at all. Gravity should literally work against itself and against the curvature of the Earth in order that to happen.
It’s amazing that this video is 5 years old, suggesting that the ridge push/slab pull model is at least that old. And still the older plate tectonics being driven by convection currents is still being taught. It like we’re teaching that the earth is still at the centre of the solar system and universe. People need to share the hell out of this video. It’s clear and concise and easy enough for younger minds to understand.
Good video, I will discuss this with my structural geology & tectonics students. Thanks for the excellent work!
Thank you for taking time to comment! We are glad that it works for you. (from the animator)
Thank you for your videos. Your hard work and dedication enable me and my students to understand the topic better. God bless you all!
Thank you! after watching this video my all doubts get cleared.
This is by FAR the best explanation, with visuals to explain tectonic plate motion and the forces required to accomplish those motions. The convection model just has not satisfied me. Imagining the immense forces required to
Move such massive pieces it makes much more sense that gravity play a bigger role in the process. Thanks for posting this!
Sharing with all of my college students - Thanks!
P.S. It's "Bunsen" rather than "Bunson". ;-)
your visuals work facilitates leaning expendentaly,nice!
Wow! Great video!
Please update. Recent research shows tidal forces from the Moon may have a major effect on heating the interior of the Earth and also driving the plate motion.
Just like the moons of Jupyter and Saturn have seismicity and volcanic activity induced by their massive tidal forces.
The paper is called - "Tug of Sun, Moon could be driving plate motions on ‘imbalanced’ Earth"
My tectonics teacher ask me to watch it a really good video
Love it thanks 🙏🙏
Thanks great help.
At 4.52 in the video "In this example, lithospheric mantle rock in the subducting plate, at 150 kilometers depth, is 1000 degrees cooler than the asthenospheric mantle at the same depth"... How can that be? That after millions of years (3 million years if the descent is 5 centimeter/year) the heat balance hasn´t been reached? I have tried to search (google) the sources for this. Anyone know a good source?
Warming by conduction requires as much time as cooling by conduction. Rocks are poor conductors of heat; in fact, they are good insulators which is why insulation for houses has an “R rating” indicating the equivalent thickness of rock in inches. If it takes ~80 million years for the ocean plate to cool and reach thermal equilibrium after formation, it will take 10s of millions of years to warm by thermal conduction during subduction, even though the subducting plate is heated from both the top and the bottom. So 3 million years of descent is a very short time compared to that required to thermal equilibrium.
References:
Currie, et al., 2002; Thermal models of the Mexico subduction zone: Implications for the megathrust seismogenic zone, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 107, NO. B12, 2370, doi:10.1029/2001JB000886.
and
F. Klingelhoefer, et al., 2010; Limits of the seismogenic zone in the epicentral region of the 26 December 2004 great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake: Results from seismic refraction and wide-angle reflection surveys and thermal modeling, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 115, B01304, doi:10.1029/2009JB006569.
Thank you very much for the answer. I will check those references for sure. I was just so surprised by it - it does not intuitively make sense, if one imagines this mass "baked" in an oven (surrounded by 1000 degrees hotter environment) for that long time. Very nice video by the way.
If diving slab pull is the primary driver of plate motion, I don't understand how the North America continent is moving west southwest.
Why central portion of MOR is triangular in shape? Please explain.
lmao who cares
hi, i hope this gets noticed. I am hoping to use this video for educational purposes. what are the copyright laws for this video? thank you
I do not understand the movement about the pacific plate (late part of video). I believed the pacific plate outside of western USA (california etc) moves eastward (down under the landmass of USA), but here the movement is westward - away from this landmass...?
The Pacific Plate is moving in a northwest direction at a speed of between 7 and 11 centimeters (cm) or ~3-4 inches a year.The Hawaiian Islands sit in the middle of the northern half of this plate and give evidence for direction of plate motion. You might be thinking of the Juan de Fuca Plate that is diving, or subducting beneath the Pacific Northwest, also known as Cascadia, which lies on the North American Plate. The Juan de Fuca Plate/Cascadia regionhas gotten a lot of press coverage due to the similarity of the tectonic setting to Japan. You can learn more about the Pacific Northwest in this animation: ua-cam.com/video/_belQwGNolY/v-deo.html
That explains it. I have seen nick zentner´s videos about the situation outside of washington state, and assumed that the juan de fuca plate movement was showing the general movement of the whole pacific plate. Also with the deep underwater peru-chile trench outside of chile etc - similar to the mariana trench outside of japan etc, I assumed they were subduction zone traits (those two deep trenches, that is).
Good video but can't relate to metric system. Really confusing.
This theory of the sloping pull don't explain when they come together and mountain? Like how the himalayans Appalachian the Rockies should i go on?
This explains when an oceanic plate comes together with a continental plate. The oceanic plate is denser and thinner than the more-buoyant thicker continental plate. When they come together the oceanic plate "subducts" (or dives) beneath the continental plate. When two continental plates come together, they crash and build higher mountains, as they do in this animation of the Himalayan Mountains: ua-cam.com/video/5VjaSFEf4BU/v-deo.html
@@michelcoil1882 The video is about what drives plate motion. Not the effects of plate collisions. The video did a good job explaining what it set out to.
shamefully incompetent explanation. push-pull is not the "driver," but a secondary segment in a chain of events starting hundreds if not thousands of kilometers deeper.
There is still debate on what the dynamics are. Two more mainstream variations on what is the driving dynamics are Convection theory vs Plume theory. Both suggesting very different points. But there is quite a lot more exotic and alternative theories as well. Currently we didn't have conclusive answer on the process at all...
I don't believe in the subduction concept. Look at the map of the oceanic lithosphere age. You will see that mostly young (and relatively light) ocean crust goes down, but not old (and relativeky dense) ocean crust.
If there is no subduction -- there is no ridiculous "plate tectonics" which should be forgotten as the biggest mistake in geosciences in the 20th century.
The Earth is gradually expanding. Don't be afraid to accept a much more realistic Earth evolution.
In this video the continent stays stationairy.
There is more to slabs then pull and push.
The zone from the bending point ( "hinge" ) to tilted sinking slab moves towards the midocean ridge.
So the whole sinking slab moves in the direction of the midocean ridge . The gap behind the slab is inmediately filled up with mantle material , taking the continent that floats on it with it .
To keep the earth spherical, mantle material must be moving around the subduction zone.
Driving mechanism and 3-D circulation of plate tectonics. from Warren B. Hamilton (1925-2018)
www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=001431978847466539083:xsldadcvvvo&q=www.mantleplumes.org/WebDocuments/HamiltonDriving2007.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjC8u63lu3xAhXGCuwKHULEAE8QFjACegQIABAB&usg=AOvVaw163ruOas3-X6eW7lMxhcxg
Could you make a new video with something in it like figure 17 from this article ?
Rollback subduction should be a known phenomen at IRIS.
IRIS is planning a more-comprehensive animation on mantle convection in 2022. Thank you for your suggestions.
@@IRISEarthquakeScience About convection
If both Amerikas are moving westward , what explains the eastern movement of the lesser Antilles or Sandwitch isles. A small convection cell turning the other way ?
The westward movement of the Amerikas created the atlantic ocean. The cell west of the Atlantic MOR must have been growing half the size of the atlantic. How ? By "eating" from the Nazca cell ? The cell east of the Atlantic MOR must have grown too. how ?
On east and west of Afrika is a MOR, meaning an upwelling place of a convectional cell. Afrika should be compressed, or should have a subduction zone on both Atlantic and Indian ocean coast. Witch is not the case.
Roll back subduction of the Nazca plate pulls America Westward . The MOR in the Atlantic stays in the middle because it will be constant the weakest point, where the asthenosphere can fill up the gap that becoms lithosphere. Not because it is the "inbetween " of two convection cells. There is no convection cell east of the Atlantic MOR , (nor west) . Africa has no subduction zones.
Remnants of old subducted slabs are still visible by seismic tomography. These remnants obstruct convection.
The "graveyard" of slabs is made visible by www.atlas-of-the-underworld.org/
Brilliant. I'm sick of trying to explain to kids and other teachers that the textbook is wrong. Convection currents as the driver is STILL in textbooks. It's STILL in the curriculum (though ridge push and slab pull now get a minor mention)
Do you have paper with computer simulation that explains the dynamics SIMPLY by ridge push and slab pull? Cause this dynamic alone without validations does not sound brilliant at all. Gravity should literally work against itself and against the curvature of the Earth in order that to happen.