My Plate Tectonic Journey

Hello Blogspot! This post begins my journey around the world to view places where plate tectonics have created interesting geological features. So why am I doing this? I am getting older now, but I have been interested in plate tectonics since I was young. This is my opportunity to visit and learn more about plate boundaries and places in the world where plate tectonics has a huge impact.
It's amazing - the earth can change completely over millions of years. Continents that move as fast as you fingernails grow can create things as massive as the Himalayas or as deep as the Marianas Trench. They cause natural disasters like earthquakes and volcanos that humble us.
I want to see all of the wonderful things plate tectonics have crafted in this world, one place at a time.

Disclaimer: This is for a school project about plate tectonics, and I am not actually doing this.

My Itinerary

I am going to be visiting four places on my travels over a period of 2 weeks.
Days 1-3: I will be visiting the San Andreas fault close to home, a place with a transform boundary responsible for the many earthquakes of California, including the infamous earthquake in 1906.
Days 4-7: I am going to go to the Himalayas, the magnificent result of the convergent boundary between the Indian and Eurasian Plates. I may even visit Mt. Everest!
Days 8-11: I am going to the Great Rift Valley in Africa, a rift created by a divergent boundary between two parts of the African Plate.
Days 12-14: I will end up in Hawaii to relax at the end of my trip. Hawaii was formed by a hotspot in the magma underneath the earth, creating the Hawaiian islands (volcanos). But who's going to think about geology when relaxing on the beach?

The Carrizo Plain

Welcome to sunny California, the first stop on my trip around the world viewing places that plate tectonics have shaped. I am in Carrizo Plain, the easiest place in California to view the San Andreas Fault. The San Andreas Fault is the a transform boundary, which means it is the boundary between two plates that are sliding past each other. There are no volcanos at transform boundaries because there is no subduction happening. No magma is being pushed up.

A transform boundary

In the case of the San Andreas Fault, the two plates are the Pacific and the North American Plate. The plates move erratically, sometimes moving a lot, sometimes not at all. Tension builds up when the plates don't move, and when this tension snaps, the plates move a lot and an earthquake occurs. This is why California has so many earthquakes.

An aerial photo of the San Andreas Fault at the Carrizo Plain

Around the fault line at Carrizo Plain is beautiful. It's an open grassland surrounded by mountains, with many different plants and animals. The fault at the Carrizo Plain is amazing to behold. You can see from the picture what the forces of tectonics have done to the landscape, cracking it and raising the land up around it. It's like a great scar in the middle of the plain.

My first stop on this trip was a great success. Next, I will be going halfway around the world to the mighty Himalayas, a very different environment. See you there!

Photos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kluft-photo-Carrizo-Plain-Nov-2007-Img_0327.jpg
             http://www.gweaver.net/techhigh/projects/period1_2/Yellowstone/Plate%20Tectonics.html

I'm now halfway around the world from my last blog post, all the way in the Himalayas. The Himalayas were the result of a collision boundary. A collision boundary is the result of two continental plates colliding. Because none of the plates are dense enough to go under the other one, they push each other up into a mountain range, like the Himalayas.

A collision boundary

The Himalayas are the result of the Indian Plate and Eurasian Plate colliding with each other. They first collided 50 million years ago and they are still moving towards each other, making the Himalayas grow a tiny bit taller every year. There are earthquakes in the Himalayas because the plates are moving together, but there are no volcanos.

Some tents at Base Camp with a beautiful
mountainous backdrop.

The Himalayas themselves are beautiful and amazing. I'm at the base camp of Mt. Everest right now, looking up at the monster. I don't plan to climb it, but it's very cool here nonetheless. I can see much of the Himalayas from here, and I can explore the wonderful geography created by plate tectonics. The weather here is surprisingly nice - it can get to 80 degrees! I have always loved the mountains, and this is too cool to believe.

I'm sad too leave the mountains, but I'm excited to get to go to Africa. My first two stops on my trip have been perfect - I hope it stays that way!

Photos: http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/tectonics/tectonics-collide.html
             http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7371975.stm

Hello all of my readers, and welcome to the Great Rift Valley in Africa, the result of a divergent boundary separating the African Plate into two plates. Divergent boundaries are the boundaries between plates that are moving apart. Usually these two plates are oceanic plates, creating mid-ocean ridges. There is usually volcanic and earthquake activity at these divergent boundaries.

A divergent boundary in the ocean

In this case, though, the divergent plates are both continental. Earthquakes can occur, but not volcanos, because it is not exposing magma. Continental-continental boundaries creates giant rift valleys and some of the deepest, largest, and oldest lakes in the world. It is one of these lakes I am going to visit, called the African Great Lakes or Rift Valley Lakes. The Rift Valley Lakes are located in the East African Rift, created about 40 million years ago.

A beautiful picture of Lake Victoria

The one I am visiting, the massive Lake Victoria, is the biggest lake of all of the Rift Valley Lakes, and the third biggest freshwater lake in the world. Lake Victoria is characterized in part by its cichlid population, which is incredible. Cichlids are a large, diverse family of fish with many, many species. There are many cichlids here, but even more were here before exotic fish were introduced, driving some species to extinction. This isn't the only environmental problem Lake Victoria is facing, unfortunately - many of the cities and towns around it are dumping their raw sewage in it. There are many other problems, but I'm not going to depress you with all that.

The third part of my journey has been educational, but a little sad. I hope that my next visit to sunny "hotspot" Hawaii will cheer me up and relax me. See you there.

Photos: http://tectonicplates1.blogspot.com/
             http://www.exploration-online.co.uk/article.php?id=5

Aloha, and welcome to Hawaii. I'm relaxing here on the Big Island, lemonade in hand, computer on lap, thinking about plate tectonics. Hawaii is the stand-out on our trip viewing plate tectonic boundaries, simply because Hawaii isn't on a boundary. The reason I'm here (besides relaxation) is be because Hawaii was formed by a hotspot, which is related to plate tectonics. A hotspot is a place in the mantle that is significantly hotter than the mantle is normally. As a tectonic plate moves over the hotspot, volcanos are formed by the hot magma moving up through the crust.

A diagram of the Hawaiian hotspot

The Hawaiian hotspot has formed more than 129 volcanos in the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain in its period of activity of over 85 million years. The Big Island, or the island of Hawai'i, where I am right now, is the overlap of 5 of those volcanos. Hawaii also has a lot of earthquakes, which are caused by its volcanic activity.

A view from the Big Island

Luckily, I haven't experienced any of these in my stay here. In fact, it has been very peaceful, sunny, and warm. I have been lying on the beach mostly, but I plan to do some exploration later today. But for now, I'm going swimming! Splash! (Okay, I didn't actually type while diving. That was for dramatic effect.)

Thanks for joining me on this scientific journey. I hope to have inspired some of you to love plate tectonics as much as I do.

Photos: http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/hotspots.html
             My dad