Earth's Interior
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Created by:
sdenomme13 on November 17, 2010
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30 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Two types of evidence to learn about the Earth | Direct Evidence from rock samples and indirect evidence from seismic waves |
| Seismic Waves | Waves produced by earthquakes that help us study the inner layers of Earth. |
| Pressure | the force applied to a unit area of surface |
| 3 main layers of the Earth | Crust, mantle, core |
| Crust | the layer of rock that forms Earth's outer surface- contains both the Earths dry land and ocean floor |
| Mantle | the layer of hot, solid material between Earth's crust and core, and is the thickest of the three main layers |
| Basalt | A dark, dense, igneous rock with a fine texture, found in oceanic crust |
| Granite | A usually light colored igneous rock that is found in continental crust |
| Lithosphere | the solid part of the earth consisting of the crust and outer mantle |
| Asthenosphere | The solid, plastic layer of the mantle beneath the lithosphere; made of mantle rock that flows very slowly, which allows tectonic plates to move on top of it |
| The core | made mostly of iron and nickel- consists of two parts, a liquid outer core and a solid inner core |
| Outer Core | a layer of molten iron and nickel that surrounds the inner core of Earth |
| Inner Core | a dense sphere of solid iron and nickel at the center of Earth |
| Three types of Heat Transfer | conduction, convection, radiation |
| Radiation | the transfer of energy through space |
| Conduction | the direct transfer of heat from one substance to another substance that it is touching |
| Convection | the transfer of heat through a fluid (liquid or gas) caused by molecular motion |
| Convection Currents | the flow that transfers heat within a fluid |
| What sets convection currents in motion? | changes in the fluids density, the force of gravity, and the changing of the fluids temperature |
| Density | the measure of how much mass there is in a volume of a given substance |
| Convection Currents in Earth | heat from the core and the mantle itself cause convection currents |
| Wegener's Hypothesis | states that the continents once formed a single landmass, broke up, and drifted back into their current location. |
| Continental Drift | motion of continents about Earth's surface on plates of crust floating on the hot mantle |
| Pangaea | the name of the single landmass that broke apart 200 million years ago and gave rise to today's continents |
| What did Wegener do? | Wegener gathered evidence from from different scientific fields to support his ideas about continental drift. he studied land feeatures, fossils, and evidence of climate change |
| Fossil | preserved remains or evidence of an ancient organism |
| Evidence from Climate | ancient glaciers and fossils show that in the past some continents had climates that were very different, possibly because they were located closer to the equator or poles. |
| Wegener's hypothesis rejected | Wegener couldn't provide a satisfactory explanation for the force that pushes/pulls the continents |
| mid-Ocean Ridge | an underwater moutain chain where new ocean floor is formed |
| sonar | a measuring instrument that sends out an acoustic pulse in water and measures distances in terms of the time for the echo of the pulse to return |
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