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9 10.1 Moving Contin
Ch 10.1 Moving Cont
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Asthenosphere | a layer of 'plastic' semi-solid rock in the lower mantle |
Continental Drift | the separating of continents by drifting across the oceans - the break-up of Pangaea into Laurasia and Gondwana |
Magnetic striping | patterns of magnetism trapped in rocks on each side of plate boundaries |
Ocean trench | a deep trench or downward fold in the ocean floor that is much deeper than the surround sea bed - the Mariana Trench near Japan |
Plate tectonics | the theory that the Earth's crust is cracked into many large pieces that move on the asthenosphere - like the skin on custard |
Rifting | the process of continents breaking up, subsiding and then allowing in the ocean - eg the Great Rift Valley of East Africa |
Seafloor spreading | the process of new crust forming at the mid-ocean ridges and spreading outwards - eg the mid-Atlantic Ridge between the Americas and Europe/Africa |
Subduction | where the crust is sinking down into the earth - usually an oceanic plate sliding beneath a continental plate eg the Pacific plate sliding under Asia |