Our moving world

Our moving world

How does our world move? The earth’s crust is divided into 7 huge blocks and many smaller ones. Long time ago, these blocks were all together forming the “Pangea”, but with the time they separated forming the actual continents. These blocks are called “Tectonic plates”, which are always in constant movement. The movement zones are called “plate boundaries”, which lead hazards, such as earthquakes, volcanic activity, faulting, folding and mountain building.

There are 4 type of movements: “constructive”, where two plates separate from each other; “destructive”, where one plate goes under another; “conservative”, where two plates go in the same direction touching each other; and “collision” where two plates crush.

All the types of plates can cause “earthquakes”. During an earthquake the ground shakes and vibrates rapidly. The earthquakes are measured in the richter scale with a seismograph. If there is an earthquake on the sea crust, it causes a “tsunami”. A tsunami is a huge wave, which causes a lot of destruction. Unlike earthquakes, the “volcanoes” can only be caused by constructive or destructive plates. In volcanic activity magma rises to the surface, lava pours out of a crater and, with time, it builds a cone-shaped mountain.

So in conclusion the hazards are the consequence of the tectonic plates movements. And these movements show  that our world is always moving, it is always changing.