Question | Answer |
continental drift | Wegener's hypothesis that all continents were once connected in a single large landmass that broke apart about 200 million years ago and driften slowly to their current positions |
Pangaea | large, ancient landmass that was composed of all the continents joined together |
seafloor spreading | Hess's theory that new seafloor is formed when magma is forced upward toward the surface at a mid-ocean ridge |
plate techtonics | theory that Earth's crust and upper mantle are broken into plates that float and move around on a plasticlike layer of the mantle |
plate | a large section of Earth's oceanic or continental crust and rigid upper mantle that moves around on the asthenospere |
lithosphere | rigid layer of Earth about 100 km thick, made fo the crust and a part of the upper mantle |
asthenosphere | plasticlike layer of Earth on which the lithospheric plates float and move around |
convection current | current in Earth's mantle that transfers heat in Earth's interior and is the driving force for plate techtonics |
earthquake | vibrations produced when rocks break along a fault |
primary waves | seismic wave that moves rock particles back-and-forth in the same direction that the wave travels |
secondary waves | seismic wave that moves rock particles at right angles to the direction of the wave |
surface waves | seismic wave that moves rock particles up-and-down in a backward rolling motion and side-to-side in a swaying motion |
epicenter | point on Earth's surface directly above an earthquake's focus |
seismograph | instrument used to register earthquake waves and record the time that each arrived |
volcano | opening in Earth's surface that erupts sulfurous gases, ash, and lava; can form at Earth's plate boundaries, where plates move apart or together, and at hot spots |
vent | opening when magma is forced up and flows out onto Earth's surface as lava, forming a volcano |
crater | steep-walled depression around a volcano's vent |
hot spot | the result of an unusually hot area at the boundary between Earth's mantle and core that forms volcanoes when melted rock is forced upward and breaks through the crust |
shield volcano | broad, gently sloping volcano formed by quiet eruptions of basaltic lava |
cinder cone volcano | steep-sided, loosely packed volcano formed when tephra falls to the ground |
composite volcano | volcano built by alternating explosive and quiet eruptions that produce layers of tephra and lava; found mostly wher Earth's plates come together and one plate sinks below the other (subduction) |
tephra | bits of rock or solidified lava dropped from the air during an explosive volcanic eruption; range sin size from volcanic ash to volcanic bombs and blocks |