117 original plate boundaries from Esri Data and Maps (2007) edited to better match 10 years of earthquakes, land forms and bathymetry from Mapping Our World's WSI_Earth image from module 2. Esri Canada's education layer of plate boundaries and the Smithsonian's ascii file from the download section of the 'This Dynamic Planet' site plate boundaries were used to compare the resulting final plate boundaries for significant differences.
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The Earth’s lithosphere is made up of a series of plates that float on the mantle. Scientists think the convection of the mantle causes these plates to move triggering earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain-building events, or trench formation. These plates creep along at a rate of approximately five to ten centimeters (two to four inches) per year. These plates move in primarily three main ways. They slide past one another along transform (strike-slip) boundaries, they push against each other at convergent boundaries, or pull away in opposite directions at divergent boundaries. Each one of these interactions create different types of landforms. For example, the steady pressure of the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate built the Himalaya mountains and the Plateau of Tibet. The divergent boundary between the African Plate and the Arabian formed the Red Sea.Use this plate map layer to explore how the movement of the plates cause earthquakes, volcanoes, or shape Earth’s landscape.
This map layer features both major and minor plates, but excludes microplates. The data is from the scientific study by Peter Bird published in volume 4, issue 3 of Geochemisty, Geophysics, Geosystems and was translated into geospatial formats by Hugo Ahlenius and updated by Dan Pisut.
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The global tectonics data compilation is a set of raster and vector data that are useful for investigating tectonics past and present. The datasets are useful on their own or can be used in GIS software, which includes the QGIS project file for convenience. The datasets include our new models for tectonic plate boundaries and deformation zones, geologic provinces and orogens. Additional datasets include earthquake and volcano locations, geochronology, topography, magnetics, gravity, and seismic velocity.
The global tectonics collection is suitable for research and educational purposes.
The surface of the Earth is broken up into large plates. There are seven major plates: North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa, India, the Pacific, and Antarctica. There are also numerous microplates. The number and shapes of the plates change over geologic time. Plates are divided by boundaries that are seismically active. The different plate boundaries can be described by the type of motion that is occurring between the plates at specific locations. Ocean basins contain spreading ridges where the youngest portions of the seafloor are found. At the spreading ridges magma is released as it pushes up from the mantle and new oceanic crust is formed. At subduction zone boundaries plates are moving toward each other, with one plate subducting or moving beneath the other. When this occurs the crust is pushed into the mantle where it is recycled into magma.Data accessed from here: https://www-udc.ig.utexas.edu/external/plates/data.htm
This map can be used:- to study the motion of the plates- to study phenomena taking place at plate boundaries- to visualize processes taking place.
This feature service depicts the boundaries of the Earth's tectonic plates and major fault lines and areas.Tectonic plates are large plates of rock that make up the foundation of the Earth's crust and the shape of the continents. The plates comprise the bottom of the crust and the top of the Earth's mantle. The plates are most famously known for being the source of earthquakes.A fault is a fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock, across which there has been significant displacement as a result of earth movement. Large faults within the Earth's crust result from the movement of tectonic plates.Feature service published and hosted by Esri Canada © 2020.Content Source(s):Plates, United States Geological Survey (USGS)Fault Lines, United States Geological Survey(USGS)Coordinate System: Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere (WKID 102100)This work is licensed under the Web Services and API Terms of Use.View Summary | View Terms of Use This data is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 Canada License
This story map tells the tale of Earth’s tectonic plates, their secret conspiracies, awe-inspiring exhibitions and subtle impacts on the maps and geospatial information we so often take for granted as unambiguous. But is it? We recommend you journey through this map on the trail we’ve manicured on the left. You will find yourself hovering over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge or swimming in magma deep within the Earth’s core. Have fun and we hope your voyage is fruitful!
A web application for use in explaining the global distribution of earthquakes and volcanoes and why they are located where they are - specifically designed for use with NCEA Level 1 Geography.Layers that can be turned on in this application:- Tectonic Plate Boundaries- Recent Earthquakes- Archived Earthquakes- Global VolcanoesStudents can export their maps to a PDF or screenshot their maps.You do not have to have an ArcGIS Schools Bundle to access this web application.
This map shows the relationship between major cites with a population greater than 1.5 million people and the plate tectonics which include convergent,divergent, transform, and unknown boundaries. To make this map easier for people to read I made the major city have a filter so that only cities with over 1.5 million people will show up on the map. I also made the major city dot bigger, red and a transparency of 40% so it is easier for people to see. I made it 40% transparent so people can still see the plate boundaries that cross paths with the major city dots. I changed the plate tectonic boundary lines to a darker color, a thicker line, and also made the lines 25% transparent so people can still see the map and cities under it. I also added arrows pointing to major cities that cross paths with transform boundaries. Most major cites are right on top of a transform plate tectonic boundaries which can cause a great effect to the people who live in those popular cities. Transform plates are mostly likely to cause damage and have a effect with major populated cities. Transform plate boundaries are more likely to have a great effect than the over boundaries like convergent and divergent because more cities seem to fall right on top of transform boundaries than the other boundaries. The pattern that seems to be present is that transform boundaries have a strong relationship with cities over 1.5 million people, while other plate boundaries do not have as many cities on them as the transform boundary does.
Help students visualise plate boundaries on a spherical Earth, rather than on a flat map. The model shows plate boundaries and land masses, and highlights our own Indo-Australian plate. Ready to cut out and construct (basketball required). Assembly instructions included. Suitable for primary Years 5 - 6 and secondary Years 7 - 12.
This layer shows the interpreted surface locations of active plate and microplate boundaries, in and around Te Riu-a-Māui / Zealandia. The layer was newly-compiled for, and is part of, the 'Tectonic map of Te Riu-a-Māui / Zealandia' 1:8 500 000 dataset.
This digital geologic and tectonic database of the Death Valley ground-water model area, as well as its accompanying geophysical maps, are compiled at 1:250,000 scale. The map compilation presents new polygon, line, and point vector data for the Death Valley region. The map area is enclosed within a 3 degree X 3 degree area along the border of southern Nevada and southeastern California. In addition to the Death Valley National Park and Death Valley-Furnace Creek fault systems, the map area includes the Nevada Test Site, the southwest Nevada volcanic field, the southern end of the Walker Lane (from southern Esmeralda County, Nevada, to the Las Vegas Valley shear zone and Stateline fault system in Clark County, Nevada), the eastern California shear zone (in the Cottonwood and Panamint Mountains), the eastern end of the Garlock fault zone (Avawatz Mountains), and the southern basin and range (central Nye and western Lincoln Counties, Nevada). This geologic map improves on previous geologic mapping in the area by providing new and updated Quaternary and bedrock geology, new interpretation of mapped faults and regional structures, new geophysical interpretations of faults beneath the basins, and improved GIS coverages. The basic geologic database has tectonic interpretations imbedded within it through attributing of structure lines and unit polygons which emphasize significant and through-going structures and units. An emphasis has been put on features which have important impacts on ground-water flow. Concurrent publications to this one include a new isostatic gravity map (Ponce and others, 2001), a new aeromagnetic map (Ponce and Blakely, 2001), and contour map of depth to basement based on inversion of gravity data (Blakely and Ponce, 2001).
This map compilation was completed in support of the Death Valley Ground-Water Basin regional flow model funded by the Department of Energy in conjunction with the U. S. Geological Survey and National Park Service. The proposed model is intended to address issues concerning the availability of water in Death Valley National Park and surrounding counties of Nevada and California and the migration of contaminants off of the Nevada Test Site and Yucca Mountain high-level waste repository. The geologic compilation and tectonic interpretations contained within this database will serve as the basic framework for the flow model. The database also represents a synthesis of many sources of data compiled over many years in this geologically and tectonically significant area.
Help students visualise plate boundaries on a spherical Earth, rather than on a flat map. The model shows major plate boundaries, boundary types and highlights our own Indo-Australian plate.Ready to cut out and construct (tennis ball required). Assembly instructions included.Suitable for primary Years 5-6 and secondary Years 7-12
This report consists of a compilation of twelve digital geologic maps provided in ARC/INFO interchange (e00) format for the state of Oklahoma. The source maps consisted of nine USGS 1:250,000-scale quadrangle maps and three 1:125,000 scale county maps. This publication presents a digital composite of these data intact and without modification across quadrangle boundaries to resolve geologic unit discontinuities. An ESRI ArcView shapefile formatted version and Adobe Acrobat (pdf) plot file of the compiled digital map are also provided.
[Summary provided by the USGS.]
House Mountain is in the southwest part of the Sedona, Arizona 7.5 minute quadrangle,approximately 12 km southwest of the city of Sedona (Fig. 1). The summit area is a nearly circularerosional caldera 2.2 km in diameter that is breached on the northwest side by a narrow canyonthrough which an intermittent creek flows to join Oak Creek. Relief in the caldera is 270 m. Themountain is surrounded on 4 sides by US-89A, AZ-279, 1-17, and AZ-179.In constructing the map, all geologic contacts were traced in the field. Map units weredefined on the bases of lithology and stratigraphy; stratigraphic relationships were determined inthe field by using traditional geologic principles such as superposition and cross-cuttingrelationships.
The USGS presents an updated model of the Juan de Fuca slab beneath southern British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and northern California, and use this model to separate earthquakes occurring above and below the slab surface. The model is based on depth contours previously published by Flück and others (1997). Our model attempts to rectify a number of shortcomings in the original model and to update it with new work. The most significant improvements include (1) a gridded slab surface in geo-referenced (ArcGIS) format, (2) continuation of the slab surface to its full northern and southern edges, (3) extension of the slab surface from 50-km depth down to 110-km beneath the Cascade arc volcanoes, and (4) revision of the slab shape based on new seismic-reflection and seismic-refraction studies. We have used this surface to sort earthquakes and present some general observations and interpretations of seismicity patterns revealed by our analysis. In addition, we provide files of earthquakes above and below the slab surface and a 3-D animation or fly-through showing a shaded-relief map with plate boundaries, the slab surface, and hypocenters for use as a visualization tool.
[Summary provided by the USGS.]
Web Map of Tectonic Plates for use in a NZ GIS in Schools Story Map on EarthquakesEarth's Tectonic Plates layer published and owned by Esri Canada
description: This part of DS 781 presents data for folds for the geologic and geomorphic map of the Offshore of Salt Point map area, California. The vector data file is included in "Folds_OffshoreSaltPoint.zip," which is accessible from http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/781/OffshoreSaltPoint/data_catalog_OffshoreSaltPoint.html. The onshore part of the Offshore of Salt Point map area is cut by the northwest-trending San Andreas Fault, the right-lateral transform boundary between the North American and Pacific tectonic plates. The San Andreas extends extends into the offshore about 5 km south of the map area near Fort Ross, and about 50 km north of the map area on the east flank of Point Arena. The coast between Fort Ross and Point Arena, the northwesternmost exposed section west of the San Andreas Fault, is known as the "Gualala Block" (fig. 1) on the basis of its distinctive geology, which has been widely used to develop paleogeographic reconstructions of coastal California that restore as much as 150 to 180 km of right-lateral slip on the combined San Andreas and San Gregorio Fault systems (see, for example, Wentworth, (1968); Wentworth and others (1998); Jachens and others (1998); Dickinson and others (2005); Burnham (2009). The Gualala Block is underlain by a thick (as much as 9 to 11 km, in aggregate), discontinuous Upper Cretaceous to Miocene stratigraphic section (summarized in Wentworth and others, 1998), however only the Eocene and Paleocene German Rancho Formation (unit Tgr) is exposed onshore and is inferred to form seafloor bedrock outcrops in the Offshore of Salt Point map area. The German Rancho Formation consists of sandstone, mudstone, and conglomerate interpreted as deep-water, submarine-fan deposits. The western boundary of the Gualala Block lies offshore. Using seismic-reflection data, McCulloch (1987; his fig. 14) mapped a shore-parallel fault about 3 to 5 km offshore, which Dickinson and others (2005) subsequently named the Gualala Fault. Jachens and others (1998) evaluated aeromagnetic and gravity data across this zone and modeled this structure as a steep fault within the Salinian basement block, characterized by 3 to 5 km of right-lateral offset. In contrast, Dickinson and others (2005) consider the Gualala fault a Late Miocene strand of the San Andreas fault, separating Salinian and Franciscan basement rocks, with minimum right-lateral slip of 70 km. Our analysis of deeper industry seismic-reflection data within California State Waters shows the Gualala fault as a steep, northeast-dipping structure. Shallower seismic-reflection crossing the Gualala fault reveal a thick late(?) Pleistocene section characterized by recent faulting and gentle asymmetric folding. Hence, the Gualala fault appears to be a recently active "blind" structure that has deformed young sediments. Our mapping also documents a more nearshore zone of deformation that we refer to as the "east Gualala deformation zone." This zone extends through the central and southern parts of the Offshore of Salt Point map area and is similarly charcterized by steep faults and gentle folds that deform inferred late Pleistocene strata. This section of the San Andreas Fault onland has an estimated slip rate of about 17 to 25 mm/yr (Bryant and Lundberg, 2002). The devastating Great 1906 California earthquake (M 7.8) is thought to have nucleated on the San Andreas Fault about 100 kilometers south of this map area offshore of San Francisco (e.g., Bolt, 1968; Lomax, 2005), with the rupture extending northward through the onshore part of the Offshore of Salt Point map area to the south flank of Cape Mendocino (Lawson, 1908; Brown and Wolfe, 1972). Emergent marine terraces along the coast in the Offshore of Salt Point map area record recent contractional deformation associated with the San Andreas Fault system. Prentice and Kelson (2006) reported uplift rates of 0.3 to 0.6 mm/yr for a nearby late Pleistocene terrace (exposed at Fort Ross, about 5 km south of the map area) and this recent uplift must also have affected the nearshore and inner shelf, at least as far west as the Gualala fault. Folds were primarily mapped by interpretation of seismic reflection profile data (see field activity S-8-09-NC). The seismic reflection profiles were collected between 2007 and 2010. References Cited Bolt, B.A., 1968, The focus of the 1906 California earthquake: Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, v. 58, p. 457-471. Brown, R.D., Jr., and Wolfe, E.W., 1972, Map showing recently active breaks along the San Andreas Fault between Point Delgada and Bolinas Bay, California: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Investigations Map I-692, scale 1:24,000. Bryant, W.A., and Lundberg, M.M., compilers, 2002, Fault number 1b, San Andreas fault zone, North Coast section, in Quaternary fault and fold database of the United States: U.S. Geological Survey website, accessed April 4, 2013 at http://earthquakes.usgs.gov/hazards/qfaults. Burnham, K., 2009, Predictive model of San Andreas Fault system paleogeography, Late Cretaceous to early Miocene, derived from detailed multidisciplinary conglomerate correlations: Tectonophysics 464, p. 195-208. Dickinson, W.R., Ducea, M., Rosenberg, L.I., Greene, H.G., Graham, S.A., Clark, J.C., Weber, G.E., Kidder, S., Ernst, W.G., and Brabb, E.E., 2005, Net dextral slip, Neogene San Gregorio-Hosgri Fault Zone, coastal California: Geologic evidence and tectonic implications: Geological Society of America Special Paper 391, 43 p. Jachens, R.C., Wentworth, C.M., and McLaughlin, R.J., 1998, Pre-San Andreas location of the Gualala Block inferred from magnetic and gravity anomalies, in Elder, W.P., ed., Geology and tectonics of the Gualala block, northern California: Pacific Section, Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists, Book 84, p. 27-53. Lawson, A.C., ed., 1908, The California earthquake of April 18, 1906, Report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission: Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 87, v. 1, 1451 p. and atlas. Lomax, A., 2005, A reanalysis of the hypocentral location and related observations for the Great 1906 California earthquake: Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, v. 95, p. 861-877. McCulloch, D.S., 1987, Regional geology and hydrocarbon potential of offshore central California, in Scholl, D.W., Grantz, A., and Vedder, J.G., eds., Geology and Resource Potential of the Continental Margin of Western North America and Adjacent Oceans Beaufort Sea to Baja California: Houston, Texas, Circum-Pacific Council for Energy and Mineral Resources, Earth Science Series, v. 6., p. 353-401. Prentice, C.S., and Kelson, K.I., 2006, The San Andreas fault in Sonoma and Mendocino counties, in Prentice, C.S., Scotchmoor, J.G., Moores, E.M., and Kiland, J.P., eds., 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Centennial Field Guides: Field trips associated with the 100th Anniversary Conference, 18-23 April 2006, San Francisco, California: Geological Society of America Field Guide 7, p. 127-156, Wentworth, C.M., 1968, Upper Cretaceous and lower Tertiary strata near Gualala, California, and inferred large right slip on the San Andreas fault, in Dickinson, W.R., and Grantz, A., eds. Proceedings of conference on geologic problems of San Andreas fault system: Stanford University Publications, Geological Sciences, v. 11, p. 130-143. Wentworth, C.M., Jones, D.L., and Brabb, E.E., 1998, Geology and regional correlation of the Cretaceous and Paleogene rocks of the Gualala block, California, in Elder, W.P., ed., Geology and tectonics of the Gualala block, northern California: Pacific Section, Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists, Book 84, p. 3-26.; abstract: This part of DS 781 presents data for folds for the geologic and geomorphic map of the Offshore of Salt Point map area, California. The vector data file is included in "Folds_OffshoreSaltPoint.zip," which is accessible from http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/781/OffshoreSaltPoint/data_catalog_OffshoreSaltPoint.html. The onshore part of the Offshore of Salt Point map area is cut by the northwest-trending San Andreas Fault, the right-lateral transform boundary between the North American and Pacific tectonic plates. The San Andreas extends extends into the offshore about 5 km south of the map area near Fort Ross, and about 50 km north of the map area on the east flank of Point Arena. The coast between Fort Ross and Point Arena, the northwesternmost exposed section west of the San Andreas Fault, is known as the "Gualala Block" (fig. 1) on the basis of its distinctive geology, which has been widely used to develop paleogeographic reconstructions of coastal California that restore as much as 150 to 180 km of right-lateral slip on the combined San Andreas and San Gregorio Fault systems (see, for example, Wentworth, (1968); Wentworth and others (1998); Jachens and others (1998); Dickinson and others (2005); Burnham (2009). The Gualala Block is underlain by a thick (as much as 9 to 11 km, in aggregate), discontinuous Upper Cretaceous to Miocene stratigraphic section (summarized in Wentworth and others, 1998), however only the Eocene and Paleocene German Rancho Formation (unit Tgr) is exposed onshore and is inferred to form seafloor bedrock outcrops in the Offshore of Salt Point map area. The German Rancho Formation consists of sandstone, mudstone, and conglomerate interpreted as deep-water, submarine-fan deposits. The western boundary of the Gualala Block lies offshore. Using seismic-reflection data, McCulloch (1987; his fig. 14) mapped a shore-parallel fault about 3 to 5 km offshore, which Dickinson and others (2005) subsequently named the Gualala Fault. Jachens and others (1998) evaluated aeromagnetic and gravity data across this zone and modeled this structure as a steep fault within the Salinian basement block, characterized by 3 to 5 km of right-lateral offset. In contrast, Dickinson and others (2005) consider the Gualala fault a Late Miocene strand of the San Andreas
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License information was derived automatically
The NLWv3 Tectonic Plates layer contains features are produced based on assigning each NLWv3 landform feature the topmost tectonic plate and then using ArcGIS's Dissolve geoprocessing tool to create multipart polygons representing the area of each of the topmost plates.Tectonic plates are the building blocks of continents and comprise the Earth's crust. Tectonic plates float, moving slowly in the outer layers of the Earth's mantle. Tectonic plates cover the entire Earth's surface and their respective movements creates three types of boundaries: Divergent: The plates are moving away from each other causing new crust to emerge. Such boundaries are usually referred to as rift zones.Convergent: The plates are colliding in one of two ways. The first is when the edges of both plates uplift to cause mountains to rise and the second is subducting where one plate slides beneath the other, causing it to rise. Transform: These plates slide past each other in opposite directions.The boundaries of tectonic plates are where earthquakes, most volcanoes, and rough mountainous terrain are produced. We evaluated the most recently produced digital tectonic plate boundary datasets. The NLWv3 compilation based is first based on Ahlenius and then we adjusted many of the boundaries to match more recent seafloor rift and landform boundaries. We also added the Sinai and Adriatic Sea plates. Ahlenius, H. 2014. World tectonic plates and boundaries. Accessed December 22, 2021. https://github.com/fraxen/tectonicplatesTectonic map of the world. Accessed April 5, 2022. https://www.datapages.com/gis-map-publishing-program/gis-open-files/global-framework/tectonic-map-of-the-world-2007.Bird, P. 2003. An updated digital model of plate boundaries. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 4 (3):1–46. doi: 10.1029/2001GC000252.Gaba, E. 2018. Tectonic plates boundaries World Map Wt 180degE centered-en.svg. Accessed June 2, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tectonic_plates_boundaries_World_map_Wt_180degE_centered-en.svgHasterok, D., J. A. Halpin, A. S. Collins, M. Hand, C. Kreemer, M. G. Gard, and S. Glorie. 2022. New maps of global geological provinces and tectonic plates. Earth-Science Reviews 231:104069. doi: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2022.104069.
117 original plate boundaries from Esri Data and Maps (2007) edited to better match 10 years of earthquakes, land forms and bathymetry from Mapping Our World's WSI_Earth image from module 2. Esri Canada's education layer of plate boundaries and the Smithsonian's ascii file from the download section of the 'This Dynamic Planet' site plate boundaries were used to compare the resulting final plate boundaries for significant differences.