How do scientist know where plate boundaries are?

Answer 1

Geologists identify plate boundaries by plotting the locations of earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation. The three types of plate boundaries are divergent, convergent and transform.

Answer 2

Several ways, depending on the nature of the plate boundary.

All of them can be located by earthquakes. Earthquakes occur along fault lines, which are breaks in the rocks where one group of rocks moves past others. Not all faults are plate boundaries, but all plate boundaries include faults. If a fault line runs hundreds or thousands of miles, and has frequent earthquakes (indicating that the fault is slipping more or less continually) then it's likely to be a plate boundary.

In addition, by studying the directions of the different kinds of shock waves from an earthquake as they arrive at a seismographic station, you can learn many things; how far away the earthquake was (which, when you can compare signals from several stations in different parts of the world, tells you WHERE it was), but also which direction the rocks on each side of the fault moved when the earthquake happened. This tells you which way one plate is moving relative to the other, which not only tells you there's a plate boundary; it tells you whether the plates are sliding past each other sideways (called a transform fault), or pulling apart from the center as at a mid-ocean ridge, or whether one is riding over another and pushing it down into the mantle in what's called a subduction zone.

You can also often see plate boundaries by examining the rocks, their types, how and where they are broken, their structures, and so on. In California there are places where geologists can actually see faults of the San Andreas system, which is a plate boundary; when it moves, it offsets rocks or even roads or fences that cross it, which lets you see right where it is. The midocean ridges are another set of plate boundaries. You can't see them in person, except in Iceland and a few islands, but the structures of the ridges show well in sonar and have been examined by remote operating submersibles. Volcanoes and deep ocean trenches mark the subduction zone type of boundary; geologists can examine the volcanoes in person or the trenches via sonar.

Answer 3

There are lines under the sea that show plates are moving therefore showing plate boundaries. Also where many volcanoes occur in the sea is where many plate boundaries are due to the built up friction and the movement of plates pushing up the old rock for new rock to form and creating volcanoes.

Answer 4

Several ways, depending on the nature of the plate boundary.

All of them can be located by earthquakes. Earthquakes occur along fault lines, which are breaks in the rocks where one group of rocks moves past others. Not all faults are plate boundaries, but all plate boundaries include faults. If a fault line runs hundreds or thousands of miles, and has frequent earthquakes (indicating that the fault is slipping more or less continually) then it's likely to be a plate boundary.

In addition, by studying the directions of the different kinds of shock waves from an earthquake as they arrive at a seismographic station, you can learn many things; how far away the earthquake was (which, when you can compare signals from several stations in different parts of the world, tells you WHERE it was), but also which direction the rocks on each side of the fault moved when the earthquake happened. This tells you which way one plate is moving relative to the other, which not only tells you there's a plate boundary; it tells you whether the plates are sliding past each other sideways (called a transform fault), or pulling apart from the center as at a mid-ocean ridge, or whether one is riding over another and pushing it down into the mantle in what's called a subduction zone.

You can also often see plate boundaries by examining the rocks, their types, how and where they are broken, their structures, and so on. In California there are places where geologists can actually see faults of the San Andreas system, which is a plate boundary; when it moves, it offsets rocks or even roads or fences that cross it, which lets you see right where it is. The midocean ridges are another set of plate boundaries. You can't see them in person, except in Iceland and a few islands, but the structures of the ridges show well in sonar and have been examined by remote operating submersibles. Volcanoes and deep ocean trenches mark the subduction zone type of boundary; geologists can examine the volcanoes in person or the trenches via sonar.

Answer 5

Scientists use a combination of techniques such as studying earthquake patterns, volcanic activity, topography features, and the distribution of rock types to determine where plate boundaries are located. They also use high-resolution mapping technologies like satellite imagery and GPS data to track the movements of the Earth's tectonic plates.

Answer 6

they look at the ocean bottoms, the land and continent boundaries to figure out where the plate boundaries are.

Answer 7

They look at sea & ocean floor maps.