Data

Copy and paste the text below. It is read-only. Select All

inner core a solid sphere of metal, mainly nickel and iron, at earth's canter outer core a layer of molten metal, mainly nickel and iron, which surrounds earth's inner core mantle the layer of rock between earth's outer core and crust, in which most rock is hot enough tp flow in convection currents; earth's thickest layer crust a thin outer layer of rock above a planet's mantle, including all dry land and ocean basins lithosphere the layer of earth made up of the crust and the rigid rock of the upper mantle,averaging about 40 kilometers thick and broken into tectonic plates asthenosphere the layer in earths upper mantle and directly under the lithosphere in which rock is soft and weak because it is close to melting tectonic plate one of the large, moving pieces into which earth's lithosphere is broken and which commonly carries both oceanic and continental crust continental drift the hypothesis that earth's continents move on earth's surface pangaea a hypothetical supercontinent that include all of the landmass on earth mid-ocean ridge a long line of sea-floor mountains where new ocean crust is formed by volcanic activity along a divergent boundary convection the transfer of energy from place to place by the motion of heated gas or liquid; in earths's mantle, convection is thought to transfer energy by motion of solid rock, which when under great heat and pressure can move like a liquid convection current a circulation pattern in which material is heated and rises in one area, then cools and sinks in another area, flowing in a continuous loop theory of plate tectonics a theory stating that earths lithosphere is broken into huge plates that move and change in size over time