| Term | Definition |
|---|
| tectonic plates | one of the enormous slabs that make up Earth's crust and upper mantle |
| crust | Earth's outermost, solid layer |
| mantle | the layer of Earth between the crust and the core |
| tectonics | the forces that cause the movement of Earth's rock formations and plates |
| theory of plate tectonics | Earth's crust and upper mantle are broken into enormous slabs called plates or tectonic plates |
| plate boundaries | places where plates interact |
| thin layer of crust which overlies a region called the upper mantle | What do tectonic plates consist of? |
| they can come together, they can move apart, and they can slide past one another | 3 ways a plate can interact |
| earthquakes and volcanoes | What occurs along plate boundaries? |
| inner core, puter core, lower mantle, upper mantle and crust | What are the Earth's layers starting from the inside and moving out? |
| continent, ocean, or both | What can tectonic plates carry? |
| pangaea | a super continent or "all land" |
| continental shelf | part of a continent that extends under shallow water from the ocean's edge down to a steeper slope |
| continental drift | theory that the continents were once one landmass that had broken apart and moved to their present positions |
| Alfred Wegener | a meteorologist that proposed the original idea of continental dirft |
| currents in the plasticlike mantle | What causes the plates to move across the Earth's surface? |
| differences in temperature in Earth's interior regions | What causes the currents in the mantle? |
| convergent, divergent, transform | 3 types of plate boundaries |
| You could look at where the volcanoes and earthquakes are and predict where the tectonic plates are located. | How were the locations of earthquakes and volcanoes useful in identifying Earth's tectonic plates? |
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