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Chapter 3
chapter 3
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Continental drift | the hypothesis that the 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 ocean is crust slowly sinks towards the mantle. |
| subduction | the process by which ocean is crust sinks beneath a deep-ocean trench and back into the mantle at a convergent plate boundary. |
| plate | a section of the lithosphere they slowly moves over the asthenosphere, carrying pieces of 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 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. |