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Your Questions!01/24/11BACKGROUND PLATE TECTONICSAs the temperature increases at semi-constant rates (depending on the rocktype), does pressure increase at the same rate? Do different rock typesincrease at different rates? –ac- Temperature increases due to combination of heat transport and generation. Pressure increases depending on density. My question is: at mid ocean ridges, does the crust spread because magmais rising or does magma rise because the crust is spreading? –jm-Can you clarify the differences between driving forces of ridge push and trench pull? –ana-Figure 1.9 of TM shows a typical ocean spreading zone where a transform fault offsets two divergent ridge spreading segments. Why arent mid-oceanic ridges continuous? Why are the transform offset segments created?combination of transform and MOR are thought to follow original weakness and separation. Somehow, it is energetically more advantageous for motion across them to be fault parallel and perpendicular, respectively, rather than at varying degrees of obliquity. In lecture on Friday you mentioned how you could observe subductedplates deep in the mantle, in particular I think you mentioned the subduction of a part of the Pacific Plate under California. I was curioushow long these paleoplates (I guess I could call them) can be observedby analyzing mantle density differences? Also do these subducted platesaffect mantle processes in anyway? I was wondering if they could interferewith circulation processesThe asthenosphere is classified as part of the mantle but is not a liquidlike the rest of it. Rather, it is a solid but subducted plates stillenter it and melt. How does this work in terms of relative densities,buoyancy, and temperature? The asthenosphere is still mostly rock but may have some partial melt, while the rest of the mantle is visco-elastic solid. Subducting plates also don’t get melted, but shed water that helps produce melts in the overlying asthenospheric mantle wedge. The book says tha