Divergent Decisions
This hot, molten rock rises up through the gaps as tectonic plates pull apart from one another.
What is magma?
This massive, growing Asian mountain range is a direct result of two continental plates crashing into each other
What are the Himalayas?
This type of sudden natural disaster occurs frequently at transform boundaries, though no volcanoes are ever formed.
What is an earthquake?
a fiery, glowing split opening up underwater
What is a divergent boundary?
El Paso sits right at the edge of this spectacular mountain range, which was pushed upward by ancient tectonic faulting and dominates our local skyline.
What are the Franklin Mountains?
This specific type of physical feature forms on land when a divergent boundary begins splitting a continent apart.
What is a rift valley?
This long, incredibly deep feature forms on the ocean floor when one tectonic plate sinks beneath another.
What is a deep ocean trench?
This famous California fault line is one of the most well-known examples of a transform boundary in the world.
What is the San Andreas Fault?
massive, snow-capped jagged peaks, showing what happens when plates do this.
What is convergent boundary (or collide)?
Deep inside the Franklin Mountains, geologists found a layer of red rock called the Red Bluff Granite, proving that 1.1 billion years ago, El Paso was home to this booming, fiery tectonic feature.
What are volcanoes (or magma intrusions)?
This famous underwater mountain range in the Atlantic Ocean serves as a prime example of a divergent boundary.
What is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge?
Volcanic mountains and islands typically form directly above this specific zone, where an oceanic plate slides downward into the mantle.
What is a subduction zone?
This is the direction that plates travel relative to each other at a transform fault.
What is past each other horizontally (or side-by-side)?
a cracked, shifting landscape dusty from shifting ground, signaling this specific boundary type.
What is a transform boundary?
Because El Paso sits inside a tectonic rift zone, residents occasionally feel these sudden, ground-shaking events, like the notable ones that occurred nearby in Valentine or Juarez.
What are earthquakes?
Divergent boundaries are unique because this happens to Earth's ocean crust at mid-ocean ridges.
What is new crust forms (or is created)?
When two plates collide at a convergent boundary, this physical action happens to the denser plate.
What is it sinks (or subducts)?
While divergent boundaries create crust and convergent boundaries destroy it, transform boundaries do this to Earth's crust.
What is neither create nor destroy it?
(oceanic or continental) that collide to make mountains grow taller without creating a subduction zone.
What are two continental plates?
Just north of El Paso near Alamogordo, tectonic pulling created a massive basin where ancient volcanic and mountain minerals washed down, evaporating to create these world-famous glistening white sand dunes.
What is White Sands?
While convergent boundaries produce deep, powerful earthquakes, divergent boundaries typically produce this intensity and depth of seismic activity.
What are shallow/weak earthquakes?
Unlike transform boundaries which feature no volcanic activity, convergent boundaries frequently experience volcanism alongside this specific type of high-intensity natural disaster.
What are strong earthquakes?
Earthquakes at transform boundaries are caused by this sudden action after plates grind together and build up massive tension.
What is a sudden release of energy?
The process happening at that underwater ridge where the sea floor splits and spreads out.
What is seafloor spreading?
If you traveled back in time 250 million years ago, El Paso and the rest of Texas were locked right in the middle of this giant, singular supercontinent.
What is Pangea?