The Inside Scoop (Earth's Layers)
100: What is the thin outer layer of Earth where we live?
Answer: The crust
200: What was the name of the ancient supercontinent?
Answer: Pangaea
100: What boundary forms when plates move apart?
Answer: Divergent boundary
100: What mountain chain in Oregon forms because the Pacific Plate subducts beneath the North American Plate?
Answer: The Cascades
100: What landform forms when two continental plates collide?
Answer: Mountains
200: Which layer of Earth is the thickest?
Answer: The mantle
100: Who proposed the idea that continents were once connected?
Answer: Alfred Wegener
200: What boundary forms when plates collide?
Answer: Convergent boundary
200: What underwater feature forms where plates are moving apart in the Atlantic Ocean?
Answer: The Mid-Atlantic Ridge
200: What feature forms when one oceanic plate sinks below another plate?
Answer: Trench
300: Which layer is liquid metal and creates Earth’s magnetic field?
Answer: The outer core
300: What evidence shows continents may have once fit together like puzzle pieces?
Answer: Matching coastlines
300: What boundary forms when plates slide past each other?
Answer: Transform boundary
What forms both the Hawaiian Islands and Yellowstone Caldera?
Answer: Hotspot
300: What feature often forms above a subduction zone?
Answer: Volcanoes
400: Which layer is as hot as the surface of the Sun?
Answer: The inner core
400: What evidence was found on different continents that showed they were once connected?
Answer: Matching fossils
400: Which type of boundary often causes subduction?
Answer: Convergent boundary
400: What feature in Ethiopia and eastern Africa is splitting a continent apart and forming a new sea?
Answer: The East African Rift
400: What feature forms at a divergent boundary under the ocean?
Answer: Mid-ocean ridge
500: As you move deeper inside Earth, what happens to temperature and density?
Answer: Both temperature and density increase
500: Why was Wegener’s theory first rejected?
Answer: He could not explain how continents moved
500: Which boundary creates new crust at the seafloor?
Answer: Divergent boundary
500: What mountain range formed when the Indian Plate collided with the Eurasian Plate, creating the tallest mountains in the world?
Answer: The Himalayas
500: Why do earthquakes happen most often near plate boundaries?
Answer: Because plates are moving and interacting there