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Heera-Plate tectonic
plate tectonics, volcanoes, and earthquakes
| Word | Definition |
|---|---|
| Continental Drift | Wegener's hypothesis taht all continents were once connected in a single large landmass that broke apart about 200 million years ago and drifted slowly to their current positions |
| Pangea | 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 Tectonics | 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 athenosphere |
| Asthenosphere | plasticlike layer of Earth on which the lithospheric plates float and move around |
| Lithosphere | rigid layer of earth about 100 km thick made of the crust and a part of upper mantle |
| Convection Current | current in Earth's mantle that transfers heat in Earth's interior and is the driving force for plate tectonics |
| 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 where 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 si 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 atlernating explosive and quiet eruptions that produce layers of tephra and lava; found mostly where earth's plates come together and one plate sinks below the other |
| Tephra | bits of rock or solidified lava dropped from the air during an explosive volcanic eruption; ranges in size from volcanic ash to volcanic bombs and blocks |