ch. 1 Plate Tectonics
About this set
Created by:
MGillian on January 13, 2011
Subjects:
layers of earth, sea floor spreading, drifting continents, and plate tectonics
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19 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Constructive force | a force that builds up mountains and landmasses on Earth's surface |
| Destructive force | A force that slowly wears away mountains and other features on the surface of Earth |
| Three main layers of Earth | Crust, Mantle, core |
| Crust | the outer layer of the Earth |
| mantle | the layer of the earth between the crust and the core |
| outer core | a layer of molten iron and nickel that surrounds the inner core of Earth |
| inner core | solid, dense center of the Earth |
| asthenosphere | the soft layer of the mantle on which the lithosphere floats |
| convection in the mantle | convection currents, heated by the core and the mantle,flow into the Asthenosphere. the hot mantle rises and the cool mantle sinks. repeats. |
| continental drift | the hypothesis that states that the continents once formed a single landmass, broke up, and drifted to their present locations |
| Alfred Wegner | scientist who thought up the contiental drift theory |
| evidence for continental drift | 1) continental fit, 2) similarity of fossil plants and animals, 3) similarity of rock sequences, 4) paleomagnetism |
| Sea floor spreading | the process by which molten material adds new oceanic crust to the ocean floor |
| Mid ocean ridge | divergent boundary in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean |
| Subduction | the process by which oceanic crust sinks beneath a deep-ocean trench and back into the mantle at a convergent plate boundary |
| Theory of Plate tectonics | The theory that pieces of Earth's outer layer are in constant motion |
| transform boundary | a plate boundary where two plates move past each other in opposite directions |
| 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 |
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