Geophysics by William Lowrie

Author:William Lowrie
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780192511331
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2018-01-29T16:00:00+00:00

The displacement of a tectonic plate on the Earth’s spherical surface is equivalent geometrically to rotating the plate about an axis that passes through the centre of the sphere. Transform faults and their related fracture zones play an important role in plate tectonics, because they can be used to locate the pole of relative rotation of two adjoining plates, known as their Euler pole. Geometrically, the radius of a circle is perpendicular to its circumference and all the radii of a given circle intersect at its centre. Similarly, great circles (meridians) drawn perpendicular to the transform faults on a spreading ridge intersect at the Euler pole of relative rotation of the adjoining plates. Thus the motions of lithospheric plates on the surface of the spherical Earth can be modelled by rotations about Euler poles. Important boundary conditions are placed on the rotations by triple junctions, which are places where three plate boundaries meet. The three types of plate boundary—ridge, trench, and transform fault—can combine to give a large number of possible triple junctions, only a few of which maintain their geometry as the adjoining plates move. An example of a stable triple junction is where the Eurasian, African, and North American plates meet at the Azores in the North Atlantic.

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