Main content
Course: American Museum of Natural History > Unit 4
Lesson 1: Plate TectonicsMapping the Heat Beneath
As seismic waves from earthquakes pass through the planet, their patterns can reveal hidden dynamics—hotspots, deep-diving rock, melting mantle—in Earth’s interior. An array of seismometers that’s being installed across the United States is now allowing geophysicists to plot revelatory views of the Earth engine deep beneath our feet. Created by American Museum of Natural History.
Want to join the conversation?
How are geysers formed?(1 vote)
As the water boils, the resulting pressure forces a superheated column of steam and water to the surface through the geyser's internal plumbing. The formation of geysers specifically requires the combination of three geologic conditions that are usually found in volcanic terrain.(0 votes)
how is convection related to pate tectonics(0 votes)
The core's heat energy is transferred to the mantle, causing it to rise towards the Earth's surface, which is cooler. As the heated mantle transfers its heat energy to the lithosphere, it becomes more dense than the surrounding magma and sinks back down towards the core.
The Earth's surface lithosphere, which rides atop the asthenosphere, is divided into a number of plates that are continuously being created and consumed at their opposite plate boundaries. Accretion occurs as mantle is added to the growing edges of a plate, associated with seafloor spreading. This hot added material cools down by conduction and convection of heat. At the consumption edges of the plate, the material has thermally contracted to become dense, and it sinks under its own weight in the process of subduction usually at an ocean trench.
https://www.iris.edu/hq/inclass/animation/mantle_convection__plate_tectonics_basic_intro(0 votes)
how do you know the temperture of the volcano far away(0 votes)
How are the data collection locations selected?(0 votes)