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17 VOCAB ES
Earth Science 3rd Quarter
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Continental drift | The gradual movement of the continents across the earth's surface through geological time |
| Pangaea | A vast continental area or super continent comprising all the continental crust of the earth. |
| magnetometer | Device used to map the ocean floor that detects small changes in magnetic fields. |
| magnetic reversal | when Earth's magnetic field changes polarity between normal and reversed |
| paleomagnetism | study of Earth's magnetic record using data gathered from iron-bearing minerals in rocks that have recorded the orientation of Earth's magnetic field at the time of their formation. |
| isochron | Imaginary line on a map that shows points of the same age; formed at the same time. |
| seafloor spreading | The hypothesis that new ocean crust is formed at mid ocean ridges and destroyed at deep sea trenches; occurs in a continuous cycle of magma intrusion and spreading |
| tectonic plate | huge pieces of Earth's crust that cover it's surface and fit together at their edges. |
| divergent boundary | Place where two of Earth's tectonic plates are moving apart; is associated with volcanism, earthquakes, and high heat flow and is found primarily on the seafloor |
| rift valley | Long, narrow depression that forms when continental crust begins to separate at a divergent boundary. |
| convergent boundary | Place where tow tectonic plates are moving toward each other; is associated with trenches islands arcs. and folded mountains. |
| subduction | process by which one tectonic plate slips beneath another tectonic plate. |
| transform boundary | Place where two tectonic plates slide horizontally past each another; is characterized by long faults and shallow earthquakes. |
| ridge push | Tectonic process associated with convection currents in Earth's mantle that occurs when the weight of an elevated ridge pushes an oceanic plate toward a subduction zone. |
| slab pull | tectonic process associated with convection currents in Earth's mantle that occurs the weight of the subducting plate pulls the trailing lithosphere into a subduction zone. |