Notes on Essentials of Plate Tectonics

This is just general advice. When you think about the time we spent looking at features on the four maps during our Discussion Meeting you should think to yourself "what can I get out of the observations I made as I study the material?" rather than thinking that now the Discussion Meeting is over, so is the consideration of the maps.

From your observations of the maps, you should be able to look at the posted "plates map" and determine:

• What type of plate boundary is it? How do you tell from the observations you made and we all discussed?
• How do topography, earthquakes, volcanoes, ocean lithosphere ages, relate to the types of plate boundaries we see, and where we see them. Or, are the no hard and fast rules.
• What about exceptions? For example, we generally see volcanoes associated with convergent plate boundaries (subduction zones in both oceanic-continental convergence, and oceanic-oceanic convergence), as well as at the elevated topography of the mid-oceanic ridges. But why are there volcanoes in the middle of the Pacific Plate (i.e. Hawaii, and other islands), or in the North American plate (Yellowstone in NW Wyoming)? Are there explanations?
• etc

You get the point: by continuing to consider on your own time, without any further formal assignment or activity on the maps, how your Plate Tectonics reading relates to these maps you will be internalizing a lot of key ideas (and coming up with questions you can ask). The payoff is that you will find it much easier to reason about any question that comes your way rather than trying to memorize a lot of facts and hope those are the ones asked about on quizzes and exams. This is the difference between learning new things in your classes rather than trying to survive your classes.