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Chapter 3 Science
Vocab Words
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| continental drift | The hypothesis that the continents slowly move across Earth's surface. |
| Pangaea | The name of a single landmass that began to break apart 200 million years ago and gave rise to today's continents. |
| fossil | Any trace of an ancient organism that has been preserved in rock. |
| mid-ocean ridge | An undersea mountain chain where new ocean floor is produced, a divergent plate boundary. |
| sea-floor spreading | The process by which molten material adds new oceanic crust to the ocean floor. |
| subduction | The process by which the ocean floor sinks beneath a deep-ocean trench and back into the mantle again. |
| plate | A section of the lithosphere that slowly moves over the asthenosphere, carrying pieces of continental and oceanic crust |