Lab 3: Discovering Plate Boundaries Continuing Discussion

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  Posted by Francesca Lingo on February 22, 2021 at 3:18 pm

  Continuing Discussion – Due on Sunday 2/28/2020 11:59 pm

  Take some time to compare your boundary classifications with those provided by others in your group and begin thinking about how you could condense these into a single classification system in which each boundary is associated with a specific pattern of earthquakes, volcanoes, topography, and seafloor age (if the boundary is on the seafloor). As a group, discuss, based on your work so far, what this classification system should look like and work toward a consensus.

  Note – there is no “right” answer for this activity. The goal of this activity is to encourage you to practice making and sharing observations and to become more familiar with the geologic features that occur at different plate boundaries and how these are distributed.

• Dahlia Michilena

  Participant

  February 22, 2021 at 8:22 pm

  I found the map of the earthquakes pretty interesting. I thought it seemed accurate the way that they faintly outlined the plates almost perfectly. I was surprised by the heavy concentration of earthquakes in areas such as Alaska and Europe. I thought the map of the seafloor age was a good representation of the involvement of plate tectonics. However, there was this one area in the Pacific Plate that I could not quite understand and would like to.
  Arthur Egel (he/him/his)

  Participant

  February 23, 2021 at 3:30 am

  The earthquake map was a fairly good outline of the plates on its own. I think it would make a fair substitute for the plate boundaries if we didn’t have that information. What part of the pacific plate was confusing? The map we were given doesn’t show every plate on Earth, as it would probably get too crowded, so looking at a more complete map might help. The chain of volcanoes and earthquakes that go south of Japan are on the boundary of the Pacific and Phillipine plate, the latter of which isn’t shown on the map we have.
  Mohammad Shaham

  Participant

  February 25, 2021 at 8:21 pm

  From my observation, maps are pretty clear to understand. Some of the observations we all got pretty same observation. Maps are nicely outlined. Easy to understand  but some of the parts of the map are had to compare with the plate boundaries. For example, I had trouble finding unique plate boundaries for the map of Earth’s topography and bathymetry. Other than that, I enjoyed doing it!
  Emily Jiang

  Participant

  February 26, 2021 at 1:58 pm

  I felt the same way! The maps were clear-cut and simple to understand. I had to keep on referring to the plate boundaries so that I could get a gist of what is happening sometimes on some maps. The topography map stumped me a bit as well but I was able to see some patterns in the end. It was pretty fun seeing all the different type of maps and how it relates to the plate boundaries.
  Arthur Egel (he/him/his)

  Participant

  February 26, 2021 at 2:12 pm

  Given what we’ve been talking about in general, I think our classification system should put less emphasis on topography if it’s harder to find patterns in that. The earthquake map gives some good classifications for general boundaries, and we can certify unique boundaries using the other geologic features.
  Emily Jiang

  Participant

  February 26, 2021 at 2:14 pm

  Overall, looking at these maps and examining it was a fun experience. Especially with the volcanoes and earthquake maps. I was surprised to see the there were a cluster of volcanoes that lie in the small island of Iceland and I sort of expected to see a line of volcanoes in the area of Japan. The earthquakes were quite interesting as well, with most earthquakes clustering around the Pacific plate. I was also surprised to see that the bottom of the Eurasian plate, where Greece, Turkey, France, Italy, etc. lies, also had a cluster of earthquakes.

  I think that most of our classifications were somewhat similar, in terms of describing the patterns of volcanoes, earthquakes, topography, and seafloor ages.
  Yussef Ibarra

  Participant

  February 26, 2021 at 5:33 pm

  Yes I agree, as a group we all more or less the same observations and classifications for volcanoes, earthquakes, seafloor, and elevations in relation to plate boundaries. The outlines of Earthquakes overlapped consistently with the map of plate boundaries.
  Yussef Ibarra

  Participant

  February 26, 2021 at 5:44 pm

  Overall, as a group, we identified similar patterns across all maps. The Pacific Plate near the Americas, the boundaries in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, and the boundaries of the African and Australian plates are associated with newer seafloors. Earthquakes are stronger along the boundaries of the Pacific, Nazcar, and South American plate boundaries. This is also the case around the Eurasian and African plate boundaries and western Pacific plate boundary. The highest elevations are seen at the Eurasian and Indian plate boundaries. Lastly, there are chains of volcanoes along the Pacific and South American plate boundaries and on the western part of the Pacific plate boundary.
  Jonathan Anwar

  Participant

  February 26, 2021 at 11:06 pm

  I think that overall we all had pretty similar classification systems with each map. I really enjoyed looking at the different maps and comparing them to the plate boundaries map because I was able to see how the different maps can somewhat show different plates. I was also able to compare these maps with each other and found that volcanoes and earthquakes tend to happen in similar places and are found densely in specific locations but spread out in others. In addition, the most interesting pattern I found was in the earthquakes map because the earthquakes somewhat outlined each plate boundary perfectly.
  Jonathan Anwar

  Participant

  February 26, 2021 at 11:08 pm

  I personally found the earthquake map as the most interesting one because it was the most accurate in outlining each plate boundary. I was also able to draw a connection between the earthquake map and the volcanoes map because they both tend to occur in similar places.