Week 5 converging plates - Raegan Walker

http://www.coolgeography.co.uk/A-level/AQA/Year%2013/Plate%20Tectonics/Plate%20tectonics/Margins%20and%20landforms.htm

I am going on another adventure, this time to the San Andreas fault in California to learn more about convergent plates.   The San Andreas fault was created by a continental crust against continental crust.   It is the Pacific plate moving against the North American plate which is a conservative margins.  Conservative margins do not make mountains, volcanoes and does not destroy the crust.    These two plates moving again each other have created structural deformation in the form a fault line where the plates are moving at different speeds.  I think it is fascinating you can actually see the fault or a gouge in a couple different areas in California.  Many times these gouges will fill with water and become lakes, ponds or seas.  With the plates move against each other sometimes they will lock together until the stress energy becomes to great and the earth breaks free and moves creating an earthquake.   The pacific plate moves at a speed of 6.3 CM per year and is faster than the North America plate.  (Gamesby)    This type of fault is called a strike-slip fault which is the “displacement of horizontal and parallel to the direction of the fault surface.”  (Lutgens & Tarbuck, 2015) The stress of the two continental plate when moving against each other will create earthquakes.  “In the great earthquake of San Francisco 1906, road and fences on the fault line separated as much as 15 feet. “  (Lutgens & Tarbuck, 2015) This fault is considered a transform fault.  Folding rocks dominate this fault.   The San Andreas fault is interesting because some places on the fault seem to produce earthquakes year after year and in other places,  seem to just move past each other.   Some geology rock researcher state that could be due to the types rock on these certain areas.  Talc seems to found in some of these areas which no earthquakes are create. “‘Talc is one of the slipperiest, weakest minerals ever studied. “ (Headlee, 2007)  

References

Gamesby, R. (n.d.). Plate margins and landforms. Retrieved from Cool Geography: http://www.coolgeography.co.uk/A-level/AQA/Year%2013/Plate%20Tectonics/Plate%20tectonics/Margins%20and%20landforms.htm

Headlee, D. (2007, 10 4). Geologists Recover Rocks From San Andreas Fault. Retrieved from National Science Foundation: https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=110106

Lutgens, F. K., & Tarbuck, E. J. (2015). Essential of Geology. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.