DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A PURELY FICTIONAL TRIP FOR MY EARTH SCIENCE CLASS.
I know you realize this by now, but you were in California with me! (I was right about where we were going.) Well specifically at our hotel in San Francisco. It was sooooo nice of them to fly you down here! I know you already know everything I’m writing but I am keeping a record so we will both always remember this trip. We have spent an amazing week here on California’s beaches, laying in the sun and swimming in the waves. We went shopping downtown and bought ice cream on the pier.
We even took a day trip to San
Andreas Fault Zone, North America, which is a transform boundary! A transform boundary is where two plates slide
past each other. This type of boundary zone neither creates or melts and crust
on the surface of the earth. That is why
it is sometimes called a conservative boundary. The two plates sliding past
each other at the San Andreas Fault Zone are the Pacific Plate and the North
American Plate. 
The two plates sliding past each
other cause many earth quakes because of the accumulation and release of
strain. There are no volcanoes here because no crust is being pushed under the
earth or being heated up so it doesn't create any volcanoes. There are many
mountains and valleys here, but only because plates are uneven and pushing up
on each other just a little. That distorts the land and makes on plate lower
than the other which makes the valleys and small mountains that we saw. Also
because they aren't sliding perfectly past each other, there is a rift in the
area. There are thousands of earthquakes a year here. The most recent, big, earthquake
here was on September 12, 1994 with a magnitude of 6.0. Here is a map of the
historical frequency of tectonic activity:
The two plates sliding past each
other cause many earth quakes because of the accumulation and release of
strain. There are no volcanoes here because no crust is being pushed under the
earth or being heated up so it doesn't create any volcanoes. There are many
mountains and valleys here, but only because plates are uneven and pushing up
on each other just a little. That distorts the land and makes on plate lower
than the other which makes the valleys and small mountains that we saw. Also
because they aren't sliding perfectly past each other, there is a rift in the
area. There are thousands of earthquakes a year here. The most recent, big, earthquake
here was on September 12, 1994 with a magnitude of 6.0. Here is a map of the
historical frequency of tectonic activity:
Well I’m sad to say this but the
trip is over now, we are heading home. I
know I will always remember it fondly and I hope you will too. Take care,
Cami
Transform boundary: http://www.gweaver.net/techhigh/projects/period1_2/Yellowstone/Plate%20Tectonics.html
San Andrea’s Fault Zone: http://sciencedude.ocregister.com/2007/09/02/is-san-andreas-fault-in-seismic-lull/1660/
San Francisco Beach: http://www.sftravel.com/beach-san-francisco.html
This is what happened at the Mid-Atlantic
Ridge. There are underwater volcanoes here because the magma is coming up
through the rifts. The magma is pushed upwards through a convection current.
There are many earthquakes here because the plates are shifting apart. There
are rifts and currently active and inactive volcanoes. Recent activity that was
recorded was the inflation of the Katla volcano in 2004. Here is a map of the
historical frequency of earthquakes (plate movement) at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
from 2010-2011:
<--Shahi Paneer
This is when two continental plates collide into each other and both crash upwards creating mountains which then connects the two continents into one. The Himalayan Mountains are formed because the Eurasian plate and the Indian plate are colliding into each other. There is a large amount of earthquake activity because the two plates are still pushing up into each other, make the Himalayan Mountains higher and higher. There are no volcanoes here because neither plate is being pushed under the other and heating up to bubble back up to the surface as magma. The most recent earthquake here was on September 18, 2011 with a magnitude of 6.9. There were 91 casualties and it hit the areas of India, Nepal, and Tibet. Here is a map on the strength of past earthquakes:
The Philippine islands are the volcanic islands formed by this plate movement and the Mariana Trench is the deep sea trench. Subduction can happen with one continental plate and one oceanic plate or two oceanic plates.In case you are still interested, here is a map of volcanic activity, just south of where I am now. The most recent tectonic activity in the Philippines was in July of 2011 on the 25th. The magnitude was 5.9. 
