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Plate Tectonics
Vocabulary dealing with plate tectonics
Question | Answer |
---|---|
The name of the single landmass that broke apart 225 million years ago and gave rise to today’s continents. | Pangaea |
The theory that pieces of Earth’s lithosphere are in constant motion, driven by convection currents in the mantle. | Plate Tectonics |
The process by which molten material adds new oceanic crust to the ocean floor. | Sea Floor Spreading |
A plate boundary where two plates move toward each other. | Convergent Boundary |
The hypothesis that the continents were once together and have slowly moveed across Earth’s surface. | Continental Drift |
A plate boundary where two plates move away from each other. | Divergent Boundary |
The undersea mountain chain where new ocean floor is produced; a divergent plate boundary. | Mid Ocean Ridge |
The movement of a fluid, caused by differences in temperature and density that help move the plates across the Earth. | Convection Current |
A system that determines the distance of an object under water by recording echoes of sound waves. | Sonar |
A plate boundary where two plates move past each other in opposite directions. | Transform Boundary |
This person came up with the Theory of Continental Drift. | Alfred Wegener |
This person came up with the idea of Sea Floor Spreading. | Harry Hess |
The process were old oceanic crust sinks back into the asthenosphere and melts. | Subduction |
Why was Wegener's theory widely rejected by scientists? | No proof of HOW the continents moved. |
The east coast of South America appears to fit like a "puzzle piece" with what other continent? | Africa |
What do you call the broken pieces of the lithosphere? | Tectonic Plates |
This type of crust is mostly made of basalt and is more dense. | Oceanic Crust |
This type of crust is mostly made of granite and is less dense. | Continental Crust |
What forms when a divergent boundary occurs on land (between 2 continental crusts)? | Rift Valley |
When 2 continental crust collide at a convergent boundary, what will form? | Mountains |