Question:Taking your normal lunchtime break from your tectonics/planetary science lab at UBC your group is rudely disturbed down at Wreck Beach by two men in suits stumbling toward you through the sand. They introduce themselves as NASA scientists and beg you to help NASA understand the data that a space probe has been sending back to Earth. Since your lab has won 3 Nobel prizes over the last 5 years you aren’t surprised they have come to you…The probe has been surveying a newly discovered moon that orbits one of the planets in our solar system. The probe is quite sophisticated and maps the moon’s:surface topographyheat flow from the surfaceearthquake foci (i.e. both epicentres and depths)remanent magnetic field (in the surface rocks)surface rock age.That is all the information you have. NASA wants to know if there has been plate tectonics on this moon and if those processes are currently active.Question: To guide NASA as to what they should look for in the data list at least 8 things that you would immediately look for in the probe’s observations to test for the presence of active plate tectonics. Provide a brief justification (~2 sentences) for each point.[Note that from this dataset you could probably come up with 15-20 different “signatures” of plate tectonics. Many will link together forming the same patterns].Consider the patterns that plate tectonic processes leave at the surface. For example volcanism does not require plate tectonics (e.g. Mars and Venus) but certain patterns of volcanism do suggest active plate tectonics.There is no need to research this question at all. Just use what you know about the Earth what the key things are associated with plate tectonics and what observations those would provide. Then apply that to this moon!Follow this example for each of the “signatures” you choose:”I would look for XXX pattern in the magnetic field observations because if XXX existed it would likely be caused by YYY process. For example on Earth we have XXX formed in [this place] because of YYY. If plate tectonics were currently active the XXX pattern would look like ZZZ.”
