Episode 55 - "Every time you clip your fingernails" Plate Tectonics

Why do mountains form, earthquakes happen, and volcanoes form where they do? The answer is plate tectonics. This week we explore the history of being wrong about how the Earth works.

• Shannon’s Keyboard

Plate Tectonics

• Tectonics is from the Greek tekton or “builder”


• Ben Franklin’s Letter


• Alfred Wegener


• The Origin of Continents and Oceans (Book by Wegener)


• Mesosaurus


• Arthur Holmes (1928)


• NOAA Seafloor Spreading Activity


• Seafloor spreading proposed by Hess and Dietz


• B.O.B and NDGT rap battle about the shape of the Earth


• John Tuzo Wilson


• Mantle Convection


• Slab Pull


• Chain demonstration

Plate Boundaries

• Divergent


• Convergent


• Transform


• Lava lakes as analogs

Fun Paper Friday

How does cement harden? Does it turn into a continuous material or is it still a bunch of grains stuck together? Find out with this week’s Fun Paper Friday!

• MIT News Story on Research


• Ioannidou, K., Krakowiak, K. J., Bauchy, M., Hoover, C. G., Masoero, E., Yip, S., et al. (2016). Mesoscale texture of cement hydrates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201520487–6. http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1520487113

Contact us:

Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - [email protected]

John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman

Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin