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Monday, March 22, 2010

Question to plate tectonic-Force required to move a plate

Yesterday, I was trying to figure out the force required to move a tectonic plate from stanstill. Icould not find the solution
Following data is available
1. A major plate say Euresia
2. We have ,area,volume, approx density and haence weight and mass of the plate
3.We have coefficient of friction ,between solid to solid.
4.Assumung the plate free to move in any direction without any obstraction (which is not the case),how much force will it require to move from stanstill position by overcomming intial intertia?
5. How much force is generated by heat currents of solid mentle?
6.will it be sufficient to move the plate ,which is obstructed and opposed by another plate?
7. How much force is required to flod the earthcruct and form Himalya?
If anyone have calculated the force equilibrium pl let me know.

Amit

18 comments:

Roger Hunter said...

Amit;

There is no simple answer to your question, since every part of a fault is different. But the energy of a quake is a measure of the force required to move that part of the plate.

The link is to an applet that will show you that energy.

http://home.att.net/~srschmitt/script_earthquake.html

The force required to move the whole plate would be much greater.

By comparison, the force of a distant planet is infinitely smaller.

Roger

AMIT said...

Dear Roger
What I was trying to know ,was the force required for movements of the plates without any quake ( ie normal slow speed movements of the plates).

Roger Hunter said...

Amit;

Yes, I know, but I don't have that information so I gave the quake energy.

The forces from the planets are so tiny as to be entirely ignored.

Roger

AMIT said...

sir
I have my own doubts about forces of Gravitational pull like
1) How do they act at such a long distancce?
2) What medium they require to travell?
3) How do they make big planets move at an awsome speed and also make them rotate? if they are tiny.
4) How much high tide do we expect in thousands of Km fluid(magma),if we get such a huge high tide in oceanon on full Moon and New Moon ?. Oceans have comparatively less fluid than what is inside the earth.
Is it not possible that,we have not understood the Gravitational pull and that it must also be acting in some other dimension not known to us? or the dimension in which we have no measurements?
regards
Amit

AMIT said...

lady
sorry,I could not make out what you intend to say
regards
Amit

AMIT said...

hi
while studying Venus on net,I noticed that,there is no tectonics plates on Venus.Yet,there is a mountain named 'maxwell montes' which has a height of 11 kms (greater than Himalays)
how such a huge mountain developed on venus without plate tectonics?
Amit

AMIT said...

hi
yet another question
venus do not have tectonic plates,
especially divergent plates and yet more than 75% of Venus surface is covered with active volcanoes.
How plate tectonic can explain this ?
Amit

AMIT said...

three more questions to plate teconics
1)there are so many small quakes (less than 5.0) on daily basis, almost on all plate boundries. How than the stresses are accumalated at plate boundries?
2) In subduction plate boundries what exactly happens,satg ewise ?like
after two plates comes face to face what happens next? what is the exact anotomy of one going below the other?
3)How pre shocks are explaine in plate tectonics?

Roger Hunter said...

Amit;

Why do you expect to be educated on an internet blog?

Why don't you Google for answers. They are out there. Or browse the USGS website. Lots of good info there too.

Roger

AMIT said...

Roger
Unfortunately I could not find the answers
Amit

AMIT said...

hi
I have again tried to understand the theory of plate tectonics from wikipedia
what I could gether is
1) there was a single supercontinent named pangaea which was surronded by a single enormous ocean named panthalassa
2)The process of formimg and breaking of super continent is a cyclic process,and it happend several times
some of the points I could not understand are
a) what force make the continent break ? again convection currents or earth rotation?
b) why the crust below ocean panthalassa did not break? The ocean crust was thinner than continent crust,it should break first
c) was the continent splitting force there,while super continent was formed or it came later? If it was there earlier it would not allow the continent to form there in the first place.
If it came later ,how and from where?
c)where did the super ocean crust gone? subduction?
d)unless there are divergent plates
no new plates are formed,hence convergent plate boundries must be equaly old.Thus must have nearly same density. How than,one plate slides over other to form subduction zone?

AMIT said...

I was searching an animation of super continent Pangaea splitting and drifting .all I could find is animations of Pangaea and water of super ocean panhalassa.it was shown as super continent,floating over water and splitting and drifting like a wooden raft on water.
I have not seen any animation of super continent without any water. If you do not show water but show only plates ,how it looks? and how it can split? whether there were plates at that time? If not whole earth would be a single plate.
In that case for pangaea to split ,the splitting line should be all along the periphery of Earth and not shown generally as up to Pengaea boundry only

Roger Hunter said...

Amit;

Here's a link which puts some numbers to the tidal effect of planets

http://www.clockwk.com/tides/

If you Google "tide effect of planets" you'll get a lot more.

Your theory is simply wrong.

Roger

AMIT said...

roger
thanks

Zyxzz said...

Roger;

Nice finds, good info.
Thanks!

zyxzz.

Roger Hunter said...

Amit;

You've been wanting some force values so take a look at these.

http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQMain.html#IIIcan

Lots of other good information in there as well with more to come.

Roger

AMIT said...

Roger
Thank you very much. A good collection of information. However,what I wanted was the force to move a plate on solid mantle and against an equally strong force
regards
Amit

AMIT said...

hi
For probable dates of 7+ quakes ,theory and FAQs,please see my this (latest) blogs and my web page

http://earthquakeprediction.webs.com/

Next probable dates are January 18/19 and 25/26 for 7+ quake
AMit