Geology 101 with Willsey, Episode #5: Transform Plate Boundaries

[@shawnwillsey]

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[@marionnadeau8457]

What an Aha, Lightbulb Goes On moment when you showed what happens with the left and right curves in the plate boundaries!😮 Thanks so much for this lesson!

[@joanbacci454]

Me too!!! Thanks Shawn

[@markg3025]

Thank you Professor Shawn, you are an awesome teacher. If I lived in Idaho I would sign up for you classes.

[@causewaykayak]

Cartoon-ish definitely works for me. Is nice that geologists are lending out their animations to collegues to assist the teaching. It made the lecture so much easier to follow ... and now we know where the excavated spoil from the Grand Canyon ended up ! Bonus. Thank You and (that cough) get well soon !! 🇬🇧

[@xwiick]

Thanks for all the hard work on these videos!

[@oscarmedina1303]

Thank you Shawn. The San Andreas is one of my favorite subjects to study and this episode was fascinating.

[@johnnash5118]

Your description of “Relative Motion” opposing arrows of Transform Fault boundaries was excellent. I never hear this important aspect in previous public geology presentations and suspect a vast majority of geology 101 viewers assume it’s literal opposing motion. Your presentation deserves an A+.

[@ervivekchoubey]

An awesome teacher with awesome content once again. Thank you professor...

[@TurnerRentz]

I've been running through these here on YT and this kind of geology is really interesting. Geology has taught me a fascination of this planet and its dynamics. I offer if you make yourself a nice little GPT to teach you alongside this course you can learn alot here. The fact we even have plate dynamics feels like a new form of sensing the living world around us has become a part of a new way to look at life, at least for me. I still think alot about how life appeared at about the same time as complex rock formations, on this planet. Thank you.

[@professorsogol5824]

I'm glad to see Tanya's name here. She and I were in the Hiking Club in Berkeley where she was already working on these matters. Being on opposite sides of divergent plate boundaries, we are now on opposites of the Pacific.

[@maryt2887]

Was saying “Hmm” to myself and thinking I would have to rewatch this video and the ones before it, when you drew your excellent diagram and everything became clear. Thanks, Shawn!

[@felipericketts]

Looks like I found the right channel to learn about geology in general as well as the more specific geologic features of Baja, which I am particularly interested in. Thanks 🙂

[@sandrine.t]

Thank you Shawn for another fascinating episode, I really enjoy watching (and re-watching) your Geology 101 series! The cool animations as well as your diagrams at the end work very well for me :)

[@anitapaulsen3282]

Yes, same.

[@edithgruber2125]

Thank you for another brilliant presentation. It helped me to understand transform plate boundaries much better than back in high school when the explanation from our teacher were pretty vague and didn't make much sense so I forgot about them. Finally, I understand the concept.

[@notinmanitou]

Yes, I had my geology training long ago. Plate tectonics was a brand new concept in my freshman college textbook. I know the idea had been around for a while, but it hadn't trickled down to the masses yet. I really enjoy your classes, Shawn. Thanks for all the work you put into sharing your skills.

[@J0hnC0ltrane]

Very enjoyable lesson. The Dead sea is below sea level like Death Valley. The Levant region and Southern California have much it common.

[@AvanaVana]

9:24 that graphic has several errors in it where it has arrows showing dextral motion on Pacific fracture zones such as the Mendocino and Murray FZs. In fact, the plates on either side of a fracture zone do not have any kind of movement between them-all the movement is restricted to the actually active transform zone that lies in between the two segments of the ridges/spreading centers. In the case of the Mendocino and Murray FZs, the actually active segment of this transcurrent fault _is_ the San Andreas, and then FZs on either side of it represent what _used_ to be active transform faults, but which are now simply different locked together and inactive parts of the plate that are now juxtaposed together on either side of a fossil transform fault. The arrows should only ever be drawn on the segment of a fracture zone that is actually actively undergoing transcurrent motion.

[@shawnwillsey]

Hi Avana. Good point. It's an old one I've used for years. Time to get a better one.

[@KellyClowers]

These are great, thank you!

[@Mack-the-Knight]

Thanks! I live about 30 miles north of San Francisco and have lately been trying to wrap my head around the origin of the San Andreas fault systems. This video certainly helped. I hope you produce more videos on west coast plate tectonics.

[@shawnwillsey]

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for the support.

[@sueellens]

Awesome! Thank you. I hope you feel better soon! No quiz question🥳! 😂

[@BKF0]

I actually just graduated with my geology degree, but I never really had a chance to take any meaningful GEO101 class (most professors were not this prepared for online classes in 2021!), so these have been really enjoyable for me too! I had originally gotten into geology through being interested in volcanoes, but lately plate tectonics have been sucking up a lot of my time. It's a giant earth-sized puzzle!

[@stephanielangford8967]

Love the hand drawing. Just like you do when you are out in the field. Cool.

[@susanl7514]

This is terrific. Many thanks.

[@carolduell7629]

Really enjoying!

[@stephanieparker1250]

I love this series 🤗🥰

[@skyedog24]

Thank you we find it very interesting.

[@GerryWeeks]

Absolute and relative. I take geo maps to literally. Thanks for helping me think outside the box

[@ryantwalter]

Thank you very much, once again Shawn! For your exquisite and comprehensive, geological understanding and convey of the relatively new, scientific concepts that certainly should not be taken for granted! Keep up the great and empowering, understanding and education, of our beautiful planet earth! In all its small to large, humbling complexities! Forever accessible in high quality stone, (Pun intended! Haha!) on KZbin! ❤

[@leswoodburn5764]

Great info, thanks.

[@gailgreen5012]

Brilliant.

[@marcialoofboro306]

Very interesting

[@norm287]

Thx Shawn for nice video of Geology 101. nice to get a better understanding on what`s going on. with love frome Norway

[@susiesue3141]

Thanks for sharing! Great information! 😊

[@juliemurdoch348]

Thank you! That was really interesting and I think I'm getting the hang of things regarding plate boundaries 😅

[@vhhawk]

Would love to hear more about the Gulf of California. Baja Cali is on my bucket list.

[@jacquie-h4530]

Thank you Shawn, it is really fascinating having this explained so clearly but I often find I need to watch it a couple of times to catch all points. You are keeping my mind active. I have a question. With Transform Faults you describe the movement as horizontal but I am wondering if there can be vertical movement as well? I am sure I read something a few years ago about vertical uplift with this type of fault.

[@Dragrath1]

I'm pretty sure the convergent scenario leads naturally to vertical movement whether it be the formation of Mountains in California or in the Oceanic Oceanic case as seen with the Azores Gibraltar Transform Fault the beginnings of Subduction from Oceanic Oceanic convergence as the older African plate is getting thrust down relative to the Eurasian(Technically Iberian) plate.

[@jacquie-h4530]

@@Dragrath1 thank you for taking the time to reply. I was specifically wondering if transform faults themselves undergo vertical movement or is that only in the areas around convergent or divergent intersections? It may be a daft questions but I don't have a scientific background and I am trying to get it straight in my brain.

[@garyb6219]

@@jacquie-h4530 I would guess there must be some up and down movement as the plate moves along. There must be some slightly lumpy parts of the upper mantle that affect the crust riding on top of it. Like pulling a long piece of carpeting across your back yard. Mostly it rides flat but if you looked close there would be some up and down movement too. But I could be way off. This seems to make sense to me. Hopefully you too.

[@jacquie-h4530]

@@garyb6219 thank you, that's what I thought as well, it makes sense, as you say.

[@garyb6219]

@@jacquie-h4530 It's funny, before you asked that it had never occurred to me that those proccesses would exist. But they must. So with a little bit of reasoning, I hope correctly, here we are! Cheers!

[@timpointing]

I'm getting w-a-a-a-a-y more than my moneys worth from the GEO101 videos! Thanks for another wonderful instructional video. Do you think it would build anticipation and continued interest in this series if you were to finish off each video with a little teaser of what's coming up? Something like: "We'll see you next time in the next episode, ***where we'll discover "***

[@shawnwillsey]

Glad you like these, Tim. I wish I was clever enough to drop a fun teaser at the end of each.

[@marymachunis3778]

Thanks!

[@shawnwillsey]

Many thanks for your support.

[@jfmezei]

Question: at the end of this video, you speak of the transfor plates when they aresn't straight and have an example where a curve in the fault causes a short section of convergence and mountains. Specifically, would the hills north of Los Angeles (San Gabriel and the ones east of the cajon pass north of San Bernadino constitute such an example?

[@YOICHIHAGIWARA]

ありがとうございます！

[@valoriel4464]

Thx Prof ✌🏻

[@GordonMyers-y1x]

Would the lake Ontario, St. Lawrence river fault be one of these? We have been having more earthquakes in the last couple years on the eastern shore of the lake in northern N.Y. 4.5 and smaller , thanks Gordon M.

[@Dragrath1]

Interesting didn't know about this particular fault I wonder if there is any connection to the Adirondack uplift dome/hotspot which began to rise in the last ~10 Ma? It seems ATM to be compressive possibly due to the uplift of the nearby Adirondacks I notice there are a number of other nearby reactivated faults in the great Lakes region and New England etc. You also have a number of other reactivating faults like the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone and the infamous New Madrid seismic zone which have both generated high magnitude 7-8 Earthquakes and occur along a shared trend line suggesting something is going on beneath Eastern North America.

[@jfmezei]

So let me get this straight. Russia sold Alaska to the USA knowing full well that in a few years, coastal California will arrive at Vladivostok and Russia will get it for free? 🙂 This animations of formation of Baja and west coast were amazing (and I went to the Tanya Atwater pages to download the movies). That really explains the movements of plates in a more concrete way that one can better relate to.

[@Dragrath1]

I feel there should be noted that when a transform plate boundary overlaps with a convergent or divergent plate boundary what you call Oblique Convergent or Oblique Divergent the term for what type of crustal motion occurring there seen in the literature is either transpression (convergent plate boundary+ transform plate boundary) or transtension (divergent plate boundary + transform plate boundary) respectively. AT least those are the terms I see used in papers. You probably should have noted that old San Andreas history model likely doesn't hold up under the newer work covered by Nick Zentner's A to Z series for Crazy Eocene and Baja BC with the much farther extent east in association with Siletzia/Yakutat and the Yellowstone hotspot obviously too much complexity for this example level but hinting that its more complicated would be useful so people don't get confused when they hear the newer model. After all the persistence of older models in education seems to play a role in slowing down the development of academic knowledge. Another interesting fault is the Azores Gibraltar Fracture Zone/Transform Fault which has zones of transtension near the Azores and transpression near Gibraltar and Africa leading to a rare instance of young oceanic oceanic convergence that is still in the process of turning into a Subduction zone as the older African plate/Tethys ocean remnant is starting to get pushed underneath the overlying European Atlantic plate if I remember the situation correctly. As far as I am aware its the only fault system in the Atlantic capable of generating transoceanic Tsunamis like the All Souls day Earthquake and Tsunami which struck near Lisbon in 1755 which has been credited for starting the European study of Geology for why would god's wrath the conventional explanation back then for earthquakes destroy his churches while worshipers were inside on the holy day of obligation.

[@joannmay-anthony1076]

I didn't realize the Sultan Sea was on the fault. Now things make a bit more sense.

[@Bob-jm8kl]

I perfect example of 7:00 is where the San Andreas Fault cleaves the San Grabriel from the San Bernardino Mouintains. It's very obvious from satellite images. How obvious it was before then, I don't know.

[@Dan-C-71]

So, in a few million years, there will, in fact, be “Oceanfront Property in Arizona”. 😂

[@CraigInNC]

Is the Garlock Fault part of that Transverse Range?

[@DianeSmith-h3t]

Great👍 Di…Cumbria

[@Riverguide33]

👍

[@Schiffsfahrer]

Like the Appalachian Mountains and the Highlands, right?

[@otterssilver7299]

So what will happen when a continental plate comes up to an ocean rift or a divergent rift. Will it subduct and then split the continental crust underneath?

[@maschwab63]

Is the Rocky mountains the result of an continental crust going under the North American plate like India plate goes under the Asian plate to produce the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau?

[@austinobambino1360]

I don't really know the geology of the Rocky Mountains, but as for the Tibetan Plateau, India is not subducting underneath the Eurasian plate. Both the Indian subcontinent and Eurasia are continental plates, meaning they have similarly low densities. Neither plate sinks underneath the other; instead they're smashing together and thickening upwards as mountain ranges and downwards as a mantle root. Both plates 'refusing' to subduct is why the Himalayas are so big.

[@keppscrossing]

Great video! One slight correction or clarification. You said that California has mountains over 11,000 feet. It actually has the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States, at 14,505 feet.

[@7inrain]

The Rocky Mountains is a difficult case. Previous wisdom was that the Farallon Plate, an oceanic plate in the Pacific, got subducted under the North American Continent but instead of steeply sinking into the mantle it somehow went flat and nearly horizontal under the North American Plate, causing the uplift of the Rocky Mountains. This is now hotly debated because there is evidence by Geoseismology that this 'flat subduction' didn't happen. Just search for "Nick Zentner Rocky Mountains", he has some videos here on YT about it.

[@loisrossi841]

Always interesting, thank you.

[@hansschleichert7852]

Thanks!