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Chapter three
Lessons 1-3
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Continental drifts | 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 | The preserved remains or traces of an organism the lived in the past. |
| 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 |
| Deep-ocean trench | A deep valley along the ocean floor beneath which oceanic crust slowly sinks toward the mantle. |
| Subduction | The process by which oceanic crust sinks beneath a deep ocean trench and back into the mantle at a convergent plate boundary. |
| Plate | A section of the lithosphere slowly moves over the asthenosphere, carrying pieces of continental and oceanic crust. |
| Divergent boundary | A plate boundary where two plates move far away from each other. |
| Convergent boundary | A plate boundary where two plates move toward each other. |
| Transformation boundary | A plate boundary where two plates move past each other in opposite directions. |
| Plate tectonics | The theory that pieces of Earth's lithosphere are in constant motion , driven by convection currents in the mantle. |
| Fault | A break in Earth's crust along which rocks move . |
| Rift valley | A deep valley that forms where two plates move apart. |