Write an account of tectonic activity, including landforms, which are associated with it.

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James Cable                                                                        Geography

Miss Haslam

Write an account of tectonic activity, including landforms, which are associated with it.

Introduction

Tectonic activity is based on the Theory first published by Alfred Wegener, which was that of the earth’s crust being made up of individual plates. The crust contains several different plates all of which are but into two categories, Oceanic plates or Continental Plates. These plates make the earth’s surface “move/travel”. Under the earths crust is a layer of magma, the plates ride on the magma and move. Pressure builds up along the boundaries which then produce lots of instability.  The types of plate boundaries found on the earths crust are conservative, diverging and convergent.  Some of these plates carry ocean and the other plates carry the continent. Boundaries are named by how they meet each other therefore the plates which meet can either be ocean-ocean plates, ocean-continental plates or continental – continental plates.  At the point where these boundaries are found there are different landforms associated with it.  The landforms are the result of the boundaries meeting each other.

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Constructive and Destructive plate margins are the two more interesting boundaries to look at. These two boundaries are completely different in the processes that occur and the effects as well as the landforms that appear.

Constructive Plate Boundaries

Constructive plate margins are also known as diverging plate boundaries; this is because the two plates move away from each other in opposite directions. As the two plates move away from each other there is a gap between the two plates and this is filled with new rocks, which have risen up from the magma below. This movement is usually found under ...

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