• German Scientist
• Hypothesized joining of continents: Pangea
• Proposed geological boundary
• Died during exploration at age 50
• Body is preserved in the Greenland Glacier
• He did not have a mechanism for why the continents moved.

• He lived 1906-1969
• He was a geology professer at Princeton University.
• Hypothesized sea floor spreading 

• Divergent
• Convergent
• Transform Fault 

• New lithosphere is forming 
• Plates push apart

• Subduction zones
• Old oceanic lithosphere is being subducted into the mantle.
• Plates push into one another.

What is a Transform Fault Boundary?

• Plates move past one another 
• Lithosphere neither thee created or subducted

• Spreading centers
• Tensional forces move lithosphere apart
• Upwelling from mantle cause new sea floor
• Most associated with oceanic ridge system 
• 3 examples: Mid Atlantic
• East Pacific Rise
• Mid Indian Ocean
• Continent may split land to create a continental rift.

• Subduction Zone 
• Oceanic- Continental 
• Deep ocean trenches produced by oceanic lithosphere descending into mantle 
• Partial mantle
• Continental Volcanic (Andes, Cascades)
• Oceanic- Oceanic 
• 2 oceanic converge, one descends another
• Volcanic Island Arc ( Aleutian Islands) Sustained subduction creates chain of volcanic structures.
• Continental- Continental 
• Buoyancy of lithosphere slabs inhibits subduction
• Collison
• Mountain Formation

Transform Fault Boundary

• Grind past without creating or destroying lithosphere
• Typically part of linear breaks in sea floor: known as fracture zones.
• Mostly located within ocean basins ( Mendocino Fault)
• Few cut through Continental Crust ( San Andreas)

• Ocean drilling 
• Paleomagnetism 
• - Polar Wandering
• - Magnetic Reversals
• Hot spots ( Hawaii)