What are the consequences of plate motion over geologic time?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: Plate tectonics explains the history of continents and ocean basins by linking rocks and structures with plate-boundary processes. Paleozoic mountain ranges, such as the Appalachian Mountains, formed along convergent plate boundaries. Continent-continent collisions along plate boundaries assembled the Pangea supercontinent by the end of the Paleozoic Era. Pangea rifted apart during the Mesozoic, and the modern continents dispersed to their present positions since that time. Rift valleys formed in eastern North America prior to the formation of the oldest Atlantic Ocean crust when the continents separated. A convergent plate boundary along the west coast of North America from the middle Paleozoic until the middle Cenozoic caused faulting and folding, intrusion and crystallization of batholiths, erupting volcanoes, and formation of valuable mineral deposits in the western United States. Relative plate motions changed along the western boundary of the North American plate beginning about 26 million years ago. Subduction continues offshore of southwestern Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and northern California, but transform boundaries formed elsewhere along the western edge of the plate.