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JRA Plate Tectonics
Chapter 1 Earth's Layers, Heat Transfer, CD, Sea-floor Spreading, + PT
Question | Answer |
---|---|
An island located south of Iceland. | Surtsey |
Scientists who study the forces that make and shape planet Earth. | geologists |
The material that forms Earth's hard surface. | rock |
The features formed in rock and soil by water, wind, and waves. | landforms |
The study of planet Earth that began in the late 1700s. | geology |
Forces that shape the Earth's surface by building up mountains and landmasses. | constructive forces |
Forces that slowly wear away mountains and, eventually, every other feature on the surface. | destructive forces |
Great landmasses that are surrounded by ocean. | continents |
Waves produced by earthquakes that scientists study to interpret the layers of Earth. | seismic waves |
The force pushing on a surface or area. | pressure |
A layer of rock that forms Earth's outer skin. | crust |
The crust beneath the ocean. | oceanic crust |
A dark, dense rock with a fine texture that makes up oceanic crust. | basalt |
The crust that forms the continents. | continental crust |
A rock that has larger crystals than basalt, is not as dense as basalt, is usually a lighter color than basalt, and makes up continental crust. | granite |
A layer of hot rock below the boundary below the surface of the earth. | mantle |
A rigid layer consisting of the crust and the uppermost part of the mantle. | lithosphere |
The soft layer below the lithosphere that can bend like plastic. | asthenosphere |
A layer of molten material that surrounds the inner core. | outer core |
A dense ball of solid metal located inside of the outer core. | inner core |
A force surrounding Earth that causes the planet to act like a giant bar magnet. | magnetic field |
The movement of energy from a warmer object to a cooler object. | heat transfer |
The transfer of energy through empty space. | radiation |
Heat transfer by direct contact of particles of matter. | conduction |
Heat transfer involving the movement of liquids or gases. | convection |
A measure of how much mass there is in a volume of a substance. | density |
The flow that transfers heat within a fluid. | convection current |
A German meteorologist who had the idea of continental drift. | Alfred Wegener |
A single landamass that, according to Wegener, existed 300 million years ago. | Pangaea |
Wegener's idea that the continents slowly moved over Earth's surface. | continental drift |
Wegener's book published in 1915 that contained his evidence for continental drift. | The Origin of Continents and Oceans |
Any trace of an ancient organism that has been preserved in rock. | fossil |
The fossils that, when they were alive, could not swim in salt water. | Mesosaurus and Lystrosaurus |
The fossil that, when it was alive, had very fragile seeds that could not travel in water. | Glossopteris |
An island that lies in the Arctic Ocean north of Norway. | Spitsbergen |
The longest chain of mountains in the world. | mid-ocean ridge |
A device that bounces sound waves off underwater objects and then records the echoes of these sound waves. | sonar |
An American geologist who studied the mid-ocean ridge. | Harry Hess |
The process that continually adds new material to the ocean floor. | sea-floor spreading |
A small submersible built to withstand the crushing pressures four kilometers down in the ocean. | Alvin |
Stripes in the ocean rock that create a pattern for scientsts to use. | magnetic stripes |
A drilling ship built in 1968. | Glomar Challenger |
Deep underwater canyons formed when oceanic crust bends downward. | deep-ocean trenches |
The process by which the ocean floor sinks beneath a deep-ocean trench and back into the mantle. | subduction |
A Canadian scientist who observed that there are cracks in the continents similar to those on the ocean floor. | J. Tuzo Wilson |
Separate sections in the lithosphere. | plates |
A well-tested concept that explains a wide range of observations. | scientific theory |
The geological theory that states that pieces of Earth's lithosphere are in constant, slow motion, driven by convection currents in the mantle. | plate tectonics |
Breaks in Earth's crust where rocks have slipped past each other. | faults |
A place where two plates slip past each other, moving in opposite directions. | transform boundary |
The plates where two plates move apart, or diverge. | divergent boundary |
A deep valley that forms along a divergent boundary. | rift valley |
A rift valley in east Africa that marks a deep crack in the African continent that runs for about 3,000 kilometers. | Great Rift Valley |
The place where two plates come together, or converge. | convergent boundary |