Hazards Subject Assessment Revision Guide

7.
Hazards Revision
Lesson 1 – Where are Earthquakes and Volcanoes found?
Earth is almost a sphere. As Earth formed, it was so hot that everything inside melted. The heavier substances in the
liquid sank, and the lighter ones rose, making layers. As Earth cooled, the layers remained.
The Crust: The Earth's Thin Skin
 Mechanical properties: The crust is rigid and brittle, meaning it can break easily.
 Chemical properties: It's mostly made of silicate rocks, which are minerals containing silicon and oxygen.
The Mantle: The Earth's Middle Layer
 Mechanical properties: The mantle is plastic, meaning it can flow slowly over long periods of time.
 Chemical properties: It's mostly made of silicate rocks too, but they're denser and richer in iron and magnesium
than the crust.
The Core: The Earth's Hot Heart
 Mechanical properties: The outer core is liquid, while the inner core is solid but under immense pressure.
 Chemical properties: The core is mostly made of iron and nickel.
So, to summarise:
 The crust is thin, rigid, and made of silicate rocks.
 The mantle is thick, plastic, and also made of silicate rocks.
 The core is very hot, made of iron and nickel, and has both liquid and solid parts.
Two important layers when investigating hazards are the ‘lithosphere’ and ‘asthenosphere’.
The lithosphere includes the brittle upper portion of the mantle and the crust, the outermost layers of Earth's structure.
It is split into large pieces called tectonic plates.
The asthenosphere is a portion of the Earth's mantle that is ductile, flowing like molten plastic despite being solid. It can
undergo significant deformation.
Lesson 2. Why do Earth’s tectonic plates move?
Imagine a giant jigsaw puzzle. Each piece is a continent, and they used to fit together perfectly. That's the idea behind
continental drift! Long, long ago, all the continents were joined together as one supercontinent called Pangaea. Over
millions of years, this supercontinent slowly began to break apart. The pieces, or continents, drifted away from each
other like icebergs floating in a giant ocean. Processes such as slab pull, ridge push and convection currents all lead to
the movements of the tectonic plates. This process is known as ‘continental drift’.
Evidence to support this includes:
 Matching coastlines - If you look at a map of South America and Africa, you'll notice that their coastlines seem to
fit together like puzzle pieces.
 Similar fossils - Scientists have found fossils of the same plants and animals on different continents, suggesting
that these continents were once connected.
 Matching rock formations - There are matching rock formations on different continents, which indicates that
they were once part of the same landmass.
In order to understand why this movement occurs, we need to first understand the characteristics of our Earths
lithosphere. The Earth’s lithosphere is made up of two different types of crust; continental and oceanic. The
characteristics of these two different types of crust can be seen below:
Characteristic Continental Crust Oceanic Crust
Thickness 30-70 km 5-10 km
Mainly granite (rich in silica, potassium, and

Composition Mainly basalt (rich in silica, magnesium, and iron)
sodium)
Density Lower (2.7 g/cm³) Higher (2.9 g/cm³)
Age Older (up to 3.8 billion years) Younger (less than 200 million years)
Features Continents, mountains, plateaus Mid-ocean ridges, volcanic islands

So why do plates move?
The mechanism by which tectonic plates move is still a subject of much debate among Earth scientists. The Earth is
dynamic thanks to its internal heat, which comes from deep within the mantle from the breakdown of radioactive
isotopes. It was long thought that this resulted in convection currents in the mantle which were responsible for the
movement of tectonic plates across the Earth’s surface – indeed this is still the most common idea illustrated in many
textbooks and on the internet. However, this theory is now largely out of favour, with modern imaging techniques
unable to identify mantle convection cells that are sufficiently large to drive plate movement. Some plate models show
that two thirds of the Earth’s surface move faster than the underlying mantle so there appears to be little or no evidence
that convection currents in the mantle move plates (apart maybe from some very small plates in unusual
circumstances).
Ridge push and slab pull is now the more widely accepted theory. Ocean ridges form high above the ocean floor where
the plates are moving away from each other. Here the mantle melts to form molten magma which rises as the plates
move apart and then cools to form new oceanic lithosphere. This new material is less dense than the asthenosphere, but
cools and thickens over time, becoming more dense. This new material thickens with distance from the ocean ridge
forming underwater mountain ranges and rifts, making the boundary between the solid lithosphere and the plastic-like
asthenosphere deeper. As a result the boundary of the lithosphere and asthenosphere slopes away from the ridge
(which can be 4,000m above the surrounding ocean floor), pushing the older part of the plate in front due to gravity.
This is known as ridge push.
In places where plates are moving towards each other, the new oceanic lithosphere is forced under the continental plate
and sinks under its own weight due to gravity into the mantle at subduction zones. This pulls slabs of plate apart, which
causes the sea floor to spread or rifts to form. This is known as slab pull.

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7.

Lesson 1 – Where are Earthquakes and Volcanoes found?

The Crust: The Earth's Thin Skin

The Mantle: The Earth's Middle Layer

The Core: The Earth's Hot Heart

Evidence to support this includes:

Characteristic Continental Crust Oceanic Crust

Thickness 30-70 km 5-10 km

Mainly granite (rich in silica, potassium, and

Density Lower (2.7 g/cm³) Higher (2.9 g/cm³)

Features Continents, mountains, plateaus Mid-ocean ridges, volcanic islands

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