This book present an introduction in the wide field of plate tectonics and is dedicated to a broad audience interested in natural sciences, and students. Expertise in tectonic s is not a pre-condition; the technical terms and geological processes are explained and reviewed in adequate detail. Many ters are defined in the glossary at the end of the book and a keyword index enables quick location of topics and terms in the text. Figures at the inside front-end and back-end covers present concise overviews of the geologic timescale and critical events in Earth history as well as the classification of magmatic and metamorphis rocks. More than 200 references enable the studious reader to gain deeper insight into special topics.
The book begins with an historical introduction concerning early ideas of continental drift and earth dynamics that leads into discusion consideration of plate motions and geometry. This is followed by several chapters that define, describe in detail, and illustrate the various features, processes, and settings that comprise the plate tectonic realm: graben structures, passive continental margins, ocean basin, mid-ocean ridges, subduction zones, and transform faults. he remaining chapters deal with mountain-building processes as a consequence of plate tectonics and the collision of terranes and large continents. These chapters illuminate plate tec tonic processes from the early history of the Earth to the present. We examine how plate tectonics played a rokle in the contruction of ancient Archean continents and than built large volumes of petrozoic crust via "modern" lpate-tectonic processes. Following the late Proterozoic break-up of the supercontinent Rodinia, we follow the plate tectonic events that generated older and deeply eroded Paleozonic mountaints and the formation of Pangaea to the more recent Mesozoic and Cenozoic mountaints that remain the pinnacles of our modern planet. Examples from across the Earth are presented, including the young and lofty mountain ranges of the Himalayas, the Alps, and the North American Cordilleras. We related the concepts, prpcesses, and examples from the earlier chapter of the book. In this way the book not only describes the plate tectonic phenomena, but also focuses on the processes behind them and how they have worked in concert to produce the present plate configuration. Throuhout the book, we strive to communicate to the reader an understanding that the Earth is a body in constant motion and change a tectonic machine.

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