CIV 442

HYDROLOGY
LECTURE 1:
BRIEF GEOLOGY OF THE UAE

Prof. Evan K. Paleologos

Civil Engineering
 PLATE TECTONICS
AND THE
ARABIAN PENINSULA
TECTONIC PLATES
 The surface of the Earth is divided
into 7 major and 8 minor plates. The
largest plates are the Antarctic,
Eurasian, and North American plates.
TECTONIC
Plates are on average 125km thick,
PLATES reaching maximum thickness below
mountain ranges.

Oceanic plates (50-100km) are

thinner than the continental plates
(up to 200km) and even thinner at
the ocean ridges where the
temperatures are higher. 
 MOVIES ON PLATE
TECTONICS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB2pzhWUaiU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryrXAGY1dmE
 The plates move apart at
divergent plate
boundaries, which coincide
with mid-oceanic ridges. DIVERGENT BOUNDARIES
Hot molten material from the
deeper mantle wells up to fill
the void. Some of
this material erupts on the
seafloor as lava. The molten
rock solidifies and forms
new lithosphere. The mid-
oceanic ridges stand high
because their material is hot
and, therefore, less dense than
the colder adjacent oceanic
crust.
The most intense volcanism on
Earth occurs at divergent plate
boundaries, but
it is largely concealed below
sea level. When oceanic
earthquake locations are
plotted on a map, they outline
with dramatic clarity the
divergent plate boundaries.
Convection in the mantle can be compared to convection
Most of these are shallow in a pot of soup. Heat from below causes the material to
earthquakes, quite unlike those expand and thus become less dense. The warm material
found where plates converge. rises by convection and spreads laterally. It then cools, and
thus becomes denser, sinks, is heated and starts over again.
 Most divergent boundaries occur
on the seafloor, but continental
rifts also develop where divergent
boundaries form on the
continents.
DIVERGENT BOUNDARIES

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Ri
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The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a
divergent plate boundary and
marks the spot where new
lithosphere is forming and where
two plates are separating. The
North American plate is slowly
moving west and Africa on the Africa
Eurasian plate is moving east.
Earthquakes and volcanoes are
concentrated along the crest of
the ridge. Transform faults cut
the ridge and offset it.
(Courtesy of Ken Perry, Chalk
Butte, Inc.)
 EA
DS
RE
TRANSFORM BOUNDARIES
Transform plate boundaries occur where plates horizontally
slide past one another. Shallow earthquakes are common
along all transform boundaries , but volcanic eruptions are
uncommon.

Most transform plate boundaries are on the seafloor, but the

best-known example of this type of fault on a continent is the
great San Andreas Fault system in California. The fault zone
is marked by sharp linear landforms, such as straight and
narrow valleys, straight and narrow ridges, and offset stream
valleys.

The San Andreas Fault system is an active boundary between

the Pacific plate to the west and the North American plate to
the east. The Pacific plate is moving at about 6 cm per year,
relative to the North American plate. As stress builds
between the plates, the rock bodies deform until they break.
This sudden release along the fault causes earthquakes like
those so common in California.
TRANSFORM BOUNDARIES

Mendocino Fracture Zone

North American Plate

Pacific Plate
SAN ANDREAS FAULT
CONVERGENT BOUNDARIES
Plates move toward one another along convergent plate
boundaries. Along such plate margins, geologic activity is far more
varied and complicated than at transform plate boundaries.

Intense compression ultimately rumples the lithosphere and builds high

folded mountain belts. Preexisting rocks become altered by heat and
pressure. The net result is the growth of continents. Where two plates
converge, one tips down and slides beneath the other in a process
known as subduction.

It is clear that earthquakes and volcanoes dramatically outline

convergent plate margins. The simplest form of convergence involves
two plates with oceanic crust. Such subduction zones in the western
and northern Pacific region lie along the volcanic islands of Tonga, the
Marianas, and the Aleutians.

Trenches form where the downgoing plate plunges into the mantle.
These are long, narrow troughs, normally 5 to 8 km deep, and are the
lowest features on Earth. As a plate of lithosphere slips into the
mantle, it becomes heated and dehydrated. Some rock material melts,
becomes less dense, and rises, and some erupts to form a string of
volcanic islands called an island arc.
CONVERGENT BOUNDARIES

And
es M
untao
Trench

ins
 TECTONIC
PLATES &
EARTHQUAKES
Map of earthquake
locations and depths.
Over 10,000 earthquakes
with magnitude > 5.5
are plotted. Notice
earthquakes are
distributed along plate
boundaries, and that
their depth increases
away from trenches,
where oceanic plates
move under other plates
at subduction zones.
From Lamont-Doherty
Cooperative Seismic
Network.
USGS: TRACKING EARTHQUAKES
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
ARABIAN PLATE
Africa is moving
away from the
Arabian Peninsula. NEW PLATES
The divergent
plate boundary
extends from the
Afar Triple Junctio
n Afar
southward across
eastern Africa, and
is in the process of
splitting the
African Plate into
two new separate
plates. Geologists
generally refer to
these incipient
plates as the
Nubian Plate and
the Somali Plate.
 The rift in Afar, Ethiopia,
that is separating Africa and
Arabia and will eventually
form a new ocean.
Satellite images show that
NEW PLATES
the Arabian tectonic plate
and the African plate are
moving away from each
other, stretching the Earth's
crust and widening the
southern end of the Red
Sea, scientists reported in
this week's issue of journal
Nature.
Last September, a series of
earthquakes started
splitting the planet's surface
along a 37-mile section of
the East African Rift in Afar,
Ethiopia.

Source:
http://www.livescience.co
m/30227-rifting-of-
ethiopia-unearths-clues-to-
continents.html
 This radar image
highlights portions of
NEW PLATES
three of the lakes
located in the
Western Rift of the
Great Rift Valley, a
geological fault
system of Southwest
Asia and East Africa:
Lake Edward (top),
Lake Kivu (middle)
and Lake Tanganyika
(bottom).

Source:
http://www.livescie
nce.com/37542-
african-rift-valley-
seismic-array.html
HAJAR MOUNTAIN
Currently, the Arabian Plate is
moving north relative to the 
Eurasian Plate at 2–3 cm.
Continental collision is
occurring at the 
Zagros fold and thrust belt
 west of the Musandam
Peninsula.

This collisional plate boundary

transitions into a 
subduction zone, towards the
east. Here, oceanic crust of
the Arabian Plate is subducted
 northward beneath Eurasia,
called the Makran subduction
zone.
 End Lecture Notes

Photo: 43rd Anniversary