For the Instructor
These student materials complement the Coastal Processes, Hazards and Society Instructor Materials. If you would like your students to have access to the student materials, we suggest you either point them at the Student Version which omits the framing pages with information designed for faculty (and this box). Or you can download these pages in several formats that you can include in your course website or local Learning Managment System. Learn more about using, modifying, and sharing InTeGrate teaching materials.Greenland vs. Cascadia
Greenland (fly to 60 º 00' 00" N 44 º 00' 00" W at an eye altitude of approximately 3,000 km)
1. What is the most appropriate Inman and Nordstrom (1971) tectonic classification for this location? Be sure to check out this USGS.gov web page (moving slabs) to get some additional insight on tectonic boundaries relative to Greenland. Keep in mind that the west coast of Greenland faces a formerly active spreading center and that the east coast of Greenland faces the currently active Reykjanes spreading center that runs through Iceland.
2. Zoom in to an eye altitude of 300 km and examine the morphology of the southern tip of Greenland. What process do you think is dominantly shaping this coastline?
3. Examine some of the photos in Google Earth along the coastline in this area. Do you think this is a submerged or emergent coastline?
4. Is this an erosional or depositional coastline?
Cascadia (fly to 46 º 12' 00" N 122 º 11' 00" W at an eye altitude of approximately 1,500 km)
5. Compare this coastline to the one you just observed in southern Greenland. Look at the morphology of the coast and the bathymetry of the seafloor just to the west, noting in particular the narrow shelf, steep dropoff, and submarine canyons. What ist the most appropriate Inman and Nordstrom (1971) tectonic classifcation for this location?
6. Zoom in to ~50 km eye elevation. What kind of geologic feature is this?
7. Based on your observations and what you have learned about plate boundaries, what type of plate tectonic setting does Cascadia represent?