Plate Tectonics and California Geology
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- čas přidán 23. 01. 2015
- For an introductory college-level earth sciences class: a review of how plate tectonics is related to earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountains found across the state of California. Includes a description of the San Andreas Fault system, Mt. Shasta and the Cascade mountains, the Sierra Nevada, the Basin and Range, the Long Valley Caldera, and more.
**This video comes at the start of the semester. For a full playlist, refer to the Oceanography or Geology playlists on the Earth Rocks! CZcams Channel.
Content within this video is based on information available in any standard introductory college oceanography or geology textbook, such as Essentials of Oceanography -- Trujillo and Thurman -- OR Essentials of Geology -- Tarbuck and Lutgens -- Pearson Publishing.
Part of a 7-part Plate Tectonics video series:
Part 1: Earth Layers & Isostasy
Part 2: Plate Tectonics Basics
Part 3: Plate Tectonics Global Impacts
Part 4: Plate Tectonics and California Geology
Part 5: Hotspots
Part 6: Paleomagnetism
If you are an earth science enthusiast and would like to support our ongoing video development and engage with us behind the scenes...
Or if you are a student and would like access to interactive lessons built around these videos...
you can do so by JOINING the Earth Rocks! CZcams Channel:
/ @earthrocks .
Thank you!
Mind blowing. I keep getting more understanding of this and it continues to fascinate. I will never look at mountains or rocks the same.
I get it now! This one video animation explains all the questions I've had for decades about historic plate tectonics here out west that all my 1980's college geology classes failed to do. Thanks!
So much information requires a lot of pausing and replaying. Excellent work.
An excellent teaching technique that you don't get with most youtube videos. Having professional teachers explain things really helps.
maybe the clearest educational videos I've ever seen on the subject.
This was an assignment from my science teacher it really helped
Awesome video series, very well done!!
Dig the ole surf 60s music during quiz time.. Fun & appropriate .. Hang 10 !
So interesting. I was under the impression that once a rift was subducted, that was the end of it. I always thought it was a bit strange the subduction would block heat from the mantle. Here, I learned that rifting continues and may rift a new plate through Nevada. This is fascinating.
yup..Sierra Nevada part has active seismic activity nowdays.
Need to monitor the volcano 🌋 there ya.
# stay safe
my question is: if the quake triggered there, where the shockwave will travel?
I was under the same mistaken impression. Of course, the engine of the spreading is the hot mantel moving up and out away from the spreading center. It's not going to stop just because it gets covered by a relatively thin (to the mantel) continental crust moving at (I would guess, about 1.5 inch per year) roughly 24 miles each million years. Moving for 25 million years, I would guess this divergent boundary would be 600 miles east of San Francisco, near Salt Lake City. I understand that Reno is twice as far away from Salt Lake City as it was 25 million years ago, with Nevada and Utah being spread apart. The Basin and Range area extends all the way to Salt Lake CIty so about 24 miles per million years is probably about right.
Enjoyed this a great deal! Thank you!
This easy textbook has finally made the tectonic activity slightly intelligible and hats off for the Plate Tectonics and California Geology video and yet none of this stuff has yet made a dent in any question about the low thermal gradient in the depths of the earth nor the heat transport in the mantle nor the causes of plumes nor of hot spots nor of ores and also they have yet to explain why there is any such thing as a crust.
You thought you would get all that info in an introductory video?
Awesome, best presentation I've seen on plate movement and CA geology.
I am a new associate to online Geology studying. I find this information relative to my everyday life experience. What is occurring along the Pacific Plate boundary is worth noting. From Chile to Panama, and California to Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Aleutians, Japan, Philippians and Indonesia.This is most interesting. Remember to be prepared. Keep the Faith.
Thanks for taking the time to explain this rather well.
I seriously have no life, how am i watching this at 2am on a Friday night
You're not alone. ;)
If it’s 2AM, it’s either Friday or Saturday morning...
You have a life my friend, you just have a curious mind. Nothing wrong with that!
If this is what is interesting to you, you have a better life than most!
It’s my 34th bday at 12:04am and I’m here too now! 😂❤
It's nice to meet you, friend. Thank you so much for sharing. That was an absolutely amazing and informative video. I really appreciate the hard work you put into that. I wish you continued success and happiness always.
@pukulu: Yes, the BEST EDU-VID EVER and I'm not a native english speaking, but used to learn all Geology in english, 'cos there are more sources than in other languages. GREAT and EXCITING ! Thanks ! Understood everything and will subscribe and continue to watch with pleasure. Regards - Marisa
Excellent. I will watch more.
I think I actually live on top of a normal fault in the southern Sierra created by this process. Blows my mind!
applause, great video series, clear and exaustive ,
Really interesting stuff and well presented. My favorite bit, though, is the detached "Paauuuuse Now" voice lmao
I am lucky enough to have grown up with the channel islands in view my whole life. I did not realize I was headed north and the rest of my country was not. Channel Islands High class of 1981.
Great video! Thanks!!
Excellent. Thank you
Very Informative video. I can appreciate the Las Vegas fault zones more.
If any one wants to understand what is happening in summer 2019, they should watch this video.
Wonderful!
This is good stuff
Thank you
The Melones Fault cuts thru about 1 mile from my mine. Filled with serpentine some of which carries platinum. It's surrounded by volcanoes. Found a new fault in the mine. Not named.
The San Andreas Fault begins at the South Eastern end of the Salton sea where the Northern most spreading center of the East Pacific Rise is located not in the Sea of Cortez as this video shows. The volcanoes along this spreading ridge are known as the Salton Buttes.
5:15 ive been there! with Dr. Brandon Browne of CSUF, now HSU
During the Maunder Minimum the sun radiated less heat. Wheat prices rose 400% in the UK.
But Dr Valentina Zarkhova has noticed that more significant than the slight global cooling is the reduction of the sun's magnetosphere.
This allows more cosmic rays (nuclear particles from distant decaying stars) to strike the earth. The New Madrid fault had a major quake
during the Maunder Minimum on 12-25-1699. During during the Dalton Minimum, the New Madrid fault had 4 quakes on 3 days in 1811-1812.
Japanese scientists also noted an increase in the number of volcanoes during a Grand Solar Minimum. The likely cause of the increase in
both quakes and volcanoes is the increased cosmic rays energizing the earth.
Japanese scientists also noted an increase in the number of volcanoes during a Grand Solar Minimum. The likely cause of the increase in
both quakes and volcanoes is the increased number of cosmic rays energizing the earth.
The biggest result of a major California earthquake would be the immediate collapse of the freeways, sewer lines, water lines and
hospitals. 20 million people would have no roads, no food, no water, no sewers and no hospitals.
The US economy would collapse. Since we have many times more Unpayable Debts to cancel now than in 1933, the economy will be far worse
than then. (Expect Hyperinflation. And we have 202 million more people now than in 1929. Open Borders will not be popular with the
survivors.)
Note about Richter scale. An 8.35 quake releases as much energy as two 25 megaton Hydrogen bombs. The scale is logarithmic so a
9.35 would be exponentially stronger than an 8.35)
A worse global disaster would be a massive volcano like the one in Indonesia in 1815 that caused a year without a summer. Enter this into Google "1816 Year without a summer".
If that happened today at least 3 billion people would die within 3 years.
We are entering the Eddy Grand Solar Minimum in 2019. Winter 2019-2020 will be harsh. The first of many to come.
horse 237 , are you galloping suspiciously observing?
Очень интересно!
I live in sparks nevada which is like 16 miles away from the Mountain range
very informative
i have to watch this video because my teacher said so wow this video has a lot of info i get it now thank you
Najib Sahab is your teachers name Mr. Domingo
@@mal4252 yea why
Najib Sahab cause he’s my teacher too
Najib Sahab where in the video is the answers for the assignment
Malachi is that u I know it u for sure
Thanks for help ing me
The spreading center that the San Andreas Fault connects to at it's southern end is NOT in the Sea of Cortez. It's in the Imperial Valley at the South end of the Salton Sea where it has melted the overlying sediments creating a small chain of volcanoes known has the Salton Buttes & a field of active mud volcanoes. So,the state of California has all three types of plate boundaries (Convergent,divergent and transform) within it borders.
Good video. Nice jazz intermissions on the quizzes (what band is it?). Thanks !
Proceed With Caution is the name of the band. They are from Seattle. They have no formal CDs or web presence. :)
@@EarthRocks Thanks, thanks a lot. I ll be searching if they put out something on the web. Cheers.
Use to live in Mammoth lakes. I hiked and biked down lincoln mountain..
Heads up folks these animations are incredibly simplified and the entire west half of the state of Washington did not exist until halfway into most of these. It also doesn’t show huge land chunks adding to the west coast over time, etc etc....
4:26 Shows many layers torn apart! : That basin was SEA bottom: 4 inmense asteroids hit nortern América before dinosaurs, one broke the bottom of the sea.
If they are going back to 80 million years ago, they left out the Kula plate that moved a lot of land from Mexico to Canada. We are always learning more.
You are good!
Hi Nick, I’m one of the townies from 101 & 351. Great to see you on a busman’s holiday.
Right on Nick! Love to see you comment here. Thanks for all you do!
What effects would you say the oil and gas drilling, fracking, and geothermal use is having on California's fault zones? After watching dutchsinse it seems likely that the removal of those natural cushions are going to cause the plate to drop or shift and are probably the reason for the earthquakes.
this is a very good depiction of arc volcanism. sometimes it's hard to understand all the processes but your video did a great job!
Here after the 7.1 quake in ridgecrest
So do I understand that the Long Valley Caldera Super volcano is a part of the triple junction Seafloor spreading center that subducted under the North American plate? And also is that way Nevada’sGreat basin looks like a rift valley because it is stretching out Under a seafloor spreading center that used to be in the Pacific ocean?
Yes, with a broad brush, that is correct (what I was trying to convey).
@@EarthRocks ahhh thank you!
Although this presenter implies it, it can be properly inferred that the current Sierra Nevada is its 2nd generation. Those stranded bodies of older metamorphic rocks atop later granitics are commonly mentioned as "roof pendants". While subduction conveyance provided magmatic feed for most recent uplift, the huge graben of the Owens Valley along the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada portrays the crustal extension that aligned Mono-Inyo Craters and Mono Lake with the Long Valley Caldera. Also, while not mentioned, California's Transverse Ranges (10-11,000-ft.), which are physiographically the northern border of the Greater Los Angeles Basin, are strong indications of a distinct inland tectonic vector, approximately pushing Los Angeles toward Las Vegas. Also, the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which is offshore from NorCal, Oregon, & Washington, hosted a 9.0 quake in 1700 (tsunami registered in Japan), before Europeans began to venture into that region.
Interesting. I didn’t know it was a quiz
Any of you from Mr. Moore’s class?
you should probably not tell anyone, but yes ;)
PvDankMemes Yes, but the chances of anyone knowing who he is are very slim
Hi Julia its the queen
Shira Brody Hello Queen!
Lol me
and you can see a volcano from my house which is mt rose
letsssssss goooooooo science
currently paused on the Review questions @ 6:16 and
I'm in D - territory, can someone please quickly give me the answer for question #3?
3:00 - 3:07 awesome
I went to Mammoth Lakes Elementary
Granitic magma is wet Explosive eruption sometimes form a lava lake but he cannot
Yah, we had great beaches and incredible surf 40m ago...
John Stewart great point . Last I heard some A hole explain it that the beaches sand was being sucked away from global warming beach erosion he called it ?
As far as the surf . Yeah it was awesome and not as crowded as it is today ! 20 years ago when I was a gromet and riding bike 20 miles each way with board and suit. It was hardly ever a day where I wouldn't paddle out . But now every time I drive by the beach I can't imagine calling it a sport anymore because of the insane crowds and no good waves to surf ! Charlie don't 🏄🏼
Jody Banks I lived in Solana Beach CA back in the day...I think there IS a weather pattern cause behind the beach sand loss: There is a clockwise current in the Pacific. That current carries sand to the south and off-shore. We USED TO SEE a counter-current with storms coming out of Hawaii, and it started about May. It kept happening later and later....July...Late August...then it disappeared. The counter-current may not have had the strength to CARRY sand, but had enough to make the long-shore flow drop what it was carrying...this built into wide beaches. Whether you want to attribute my 15-year to global warming is between you and Al Gore.
BTW: I always thought that, if you pegged something shaped triangular, like a jib-sail, to the bottom, just off shore and with its open side facing into the long shore flow, you could “trap” sand under it. The trapped sand would build until the flow was was passing OVER the sail. Cheap to try. J
Relative motion of the North American Plate is not Southeastward.
The southeastward motion is absolute, not relative.
Cracks in the high desert of ElMirage dry lake bed
May22 my birthday
3:25
dang the san andreas fault cuts right thru my city
Given its broad application, everyone should understand GEOLOGY - therefore this video has been indexed and a link added by DR-KNOW / iq-2k Information Services - roughly 650 videos have indexed for this series
6:28
ok... plate tectonics 604... they all rotate... in the north all of the major plates rotate counterclockwise because the rotation of the Planet is a large part of the force moving them.. which means when the Pacific plate moves against California in a south to north direction... the N American plate is moving north to south against it... that's what creates the geology of California... the boundary is actually the Colorado River and gulf of California... the stress creates the cracks across California... it is the reason for the volcanoes up from California, Oregon and Washington through Canada and Alaska and down the east coast of Asia... called the ring of fire...
those plates seem so very substantial to us... they are less than a hundred kilometers deep... then there is 12,000 kilometers of mostly semi molten mantle... and like everything else on a sphere going round and round... there are currents within the semi molten mantle going round and round
... it's semi because of pressure... it is molten because it is radioactive... that's what drives plate tectonics... the Earth is a living Planet
🌎🌍🌏
✌️❤️✌️
one day Alaska will be where Mexico is now... if you look at the east coast you can see the bays along the coast used to be larger and got squished... the Hudson Bay in Canada is the final step opening up again... don't hold your breath for that to happen any Time soon... please
the Pacific plate is subducted underneath California and the movement mentioned above created the Sierra Nevada and mountains north... if you look at Google Earth you can actually see how they have been folded and pushed... Google Earth is the greatest thing since canned soup for a geologist...
cloudless skies are a Google trademark
remote sensing is mine
Peace ✌️ y'all
I live over in Arizona now... just in case California sinks... or something
my dad told me about the rock cycle... stuff comes out of volcanoes and cracks.. or hardens underground... makes mountains.. get worn down and subducted underneath... there is evidence that this continent has turned around 4 times in the radioactive isotopes we find on the surface... he was a nuclear engineer and physicist among other things... smart guy... army... tough guy... nice man... from San Francisco... earthquake city.. it was something he thought about... fer sure...
his dad and grandfathers were firemen during the 1906 earthquake... 🙏
✌️ Peace ✌️
🙏 Please 🙏
6:36 t pose xdd
I really love these videos, including this one, but this explanation of the San Andreas Fault just doesn’t make sense to me. The transform faults that result from divergent plate boundaries (is there any other kind?) have a defined length and direction determined by the geometry of the spherical earth and the rate of the divergence. They can’t just be of arbitrary length and they can’t just veer off in any direction they choose. The San Andreas Fault doesn’t look like any of the transform faults you are comparing it to.
I guess if the spreading was changing directions and speeds that could happen, but it’s weird how the transform boundaries look normal on either side of the fault. Is that because they’re in water? Or normal sea floor? Is the subduction of the spreading zone having an effect on the fault that you’re not going into?
And by the way, what was really subducted? I know the rock was, but there’s nothing special about the rock that makes it spread. Is it just like a current in the magma that we have been pushed into (we meaning North America)?
These are GREAT questions. As you say the seafloor spreading centers north and south (on the seafloor) are really well defined. What happened to the spreading centers that would have been in between when they were overrun by the North American continent and subducted? What we're seeing happening here is complicated. The San Andreas Fault system on the surface is just the surface expression of some interesting things happening at depth. Combine that with the stretching of the Basin and Range, which is likely also related to the subducting spreading centers. What' a spreading center do when it subducts? Do the convection cells in the asthenosphere shut down or keep going? Do they try to rip apart the continent or just migrate to somewhere new? These are all excellent questions to study.
@@EarthRocks Thanks so much for answering and for saying my questions are great. Yes, that makes sense to me, what you answered about the San Andreas fault, not that it's a complete answer, but that it's more complicated.
I'm super super intrigued by that "subduction of the spreading center." It sounds like you agree that it's because it's the upwelling of a convection cell. I watched another video that purported to give an explanation for the massive flood basalts. It said a theory was these sort of magma ejections from the center of the earth, sort of analogous to coronal mass ejections from the sun, but they take like 100 million years or something to reach the surface. That does not make any sense to me because at least the way the theory was explained, it would be based on inertia, which would not happen for 100 million years from the center of the earth to the surface in the midst of convecting magma.
My own completely ignorant theory (I know basically nothing about geology) is that there are just different manifestations of upwellings or downwellings in convection cells. My main theory is that it really depends on what's above them. Some crusts might stretch, some might rip apart. Maybe in some cases, a hole will be tunneled. Perhaps that's what creates hot spots. Isn't Iceland over both a hot spot and a divergent plate boundary. Interesting coincidence. If the spreading center to the west of the Farallon plate roughly corresponded to an upwelling--If my theory were right, we would have to remember that seafloor spreading directions do not exactly correspond to the direction of magma at the top of convection cells, only roughly so because they only indicate where the crust split and OVERALL forces (due to underlying magma flow, but also due to the size of the plate pieces) acted on two "halves" of the plate--If that subducted spreading center roughly corresponded to an upwelling, it makes sense to me that the upwelling could account for the Yellowstone hot spot, and the relatively high-velocity magma in the vicinity might have caused the Columbia River flood basalts.
Pause now
Trying hard to care what happens to California. Don't give up on me! I'll find a reason. Regardless, nice simple video. Well done
You may not like the people but there are millions of animals that call California home so maybe care for them?
5:35 You're wrong again. The most recent eruptions in the Long Valley area was the creation of Paoha island in Mono Lake about 250 years ago.
Could a well placed Poseidon torpedo be placed on one of these fault lines and detonated to bring about the 1600 ft high tsunamis the Russians have told us about that they are willing to use?
Do you have a bus to catch?? Slow down, this is interesting, but you constantly run away from us! Best of luck!
I don't believe for an instant that sea floor spreading causes movement of the plates. That is impossible. There is no mechanical way for upwelling rock to push an entire plate. No - the answer is far simpler: The subducting plate's mass drags the back of the plate as it sinks. The plates are pulled apart by plunging into the depths, this allowing new sea floor to be created as it moves apart.
SMH. ok.
Ever heard of convection currents?
As I understand, the rock in the asthenosphere is plastic, meaning solid but fluid like silly putty. Due to convectiton, the silly putty is moving in a circle--up, then sideways, then down. The sideways movement would stick to the plates and move them long.
The subducting plate will also help drag the plate material along. Recall that in the Atlantic Ocean, where the is no subduction, the plates are moving apart only 2-3 cm per year, but in the Pacific Ocean, the plates are spreading at 18-20 cm per year.
So you are partly right in that most of the movement is probably from the subducting plate pulling the plate along.
“...from the University of Santa Barbara...” 🤦♂️ if you’re going to bother to cite please get UCSB correct, defeats the purpose really.
Good catch. That was a mistake I hadn't noticed before.
When did this THEORY become science?
?? Theories are part of science -- part and parcel. Which "theory" are you specifically discussing? Plate Tectonics? It was developed in the 1950s and 60s. Did you mean another theory?