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chapter 3 ES
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| continental drift | the hypothesis that continents slowly move across earth's surface |
| Pangaea | the name of the 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 that 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 that slowly moves over the asthenosphere, carrying pieces of the continental and oceanic crust |
| divergent boundary | a plate boundary where two plates move away from each other |
| convergent boundary | a plate boundary where two plates move toward each other |
| transform boundary | a plate boundary where two plates move past each other in opposite directions |
| plate tectonics | the theory the 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 |