Palaeomagnetism, plates, hot spots, trenches and ridges are the subject of this unusual book. Plate Tectonics is a book of exercises and background information that introduces and demonstrates the basics of the subject. In a lively and lucid manner, it brings together a great deal of material in spherical trigonometry that is necessary to understand plate tectonics and the research literature written about it. It is intended for use in first year graduate courses in geophysics and tectonics, and provides a guide to the quantitative understanding of plate tectonics.
Preface; Introduction; Basics of a revolution; Plates in velocity space; Getting round on a sphere; Wrapping plate tectonics around a globe; Plotting planes and vectors in local coordinates; Earthquakes and plates; Finite rotations; Magnetism and isochrons; Paleomagnetic poles; Putting it all together; Absolute Plate Motion; Problems; Suggested Reading; Index; Index of References.
