Plate Tectonics
The three main types of plate boundaries
What is divergent, convergent, and transform boundaries
Relative dating orders events (older vs. younger); but this type of dating gives numerical ages (years).
What is absolute dating
This layer of the earth is solid but flows over a long period of time (convection currents).
What is the mantle
These are the preserved remains, traces, or impressions of ancient organisms
What is a fossil.
The breakdown of rocks into smaller pieces.
What is weathering.
A the boundary the crust/lithosphere pulls apart, magma rises to form new seafloor (example: mid-ocean ridge)
What is divergent boundaries
This method of dating gives relative ages by looking at rock layers and fossils?
What is relative dating
This layer of the earth has a solid outer layer and a liquid inner layer.
What is the core.
Matching fossils and mountain ranges on different continents supports this scientific theory.
What is continental drift (or Pangea)
The movement of sediment pieces by wind, water, or ice.
What is erosion.
Hot mantle rock rises and cooler rock sinks; this movement helps move plates along at the surface of the earth.
What is convection
This system is used to organize Earth’s 4.6-billion-year history into manageable sections (eons, eras, periods)
As you get closer to the center of the earth the temperature and _______ both increase.
What is pressure.
Name two types of evidence scientists use to reconstruct Earth's geologic history.
Examples: rock layer sequences (stratigraphy), seafloor spreading patterns, continental shapes, radiometric ages, mountain-chain alignment.
This process can move rock pieces downhill or downstream.
What is erosion.
This plate boundary is found mostly where the ring of fire is.
What is a convergent (subduction) boundary
A sequence of rock layers shows a fossil-bearing sandstone above a fossil-free sandstone, but a lava flow cuts across both. Which layer formed first?
What is the fossil free sandstone.
This is broken into tectonic plates and includes the crust and uppermost mantle.
What is the lithosphere.
Give one example of how fossils provide evidence for past life and environments.
Example: Marine fossils found in now-dry rock show that area used to be underwater, plant fossils in antarctica show that the climate was once warmer.
Choose the best answer: How do weathering and erosion change Earth’s surface? (A) They happen suddenly during volcanic eruptions (B) They create new rocks and add material to the landscape (C) Water breaks down rocks and moves material, reshaping the land over time (D) They only break down and change mountain peaks
What is C, Water breaks down rocks and moves material, reshaping the land over time
Provide two ways plate tectonics affects human societies
What is Examples: (1) Identify earthquake and volcano risk zones to plan safer buildings; (2) Locate mineral and geothermal resources concentrated at plate boundaries.
This type of dating measures decay of radioactive parent isotopes into daughter products; the ratio gives the rock’s exact age.
What is radiometric dating (or absolute dating)
Inner core, outer core, mantle, crust.
A paleontologist finds identical fossil species in two continents separated today by an ocean. Explain what this suggests about those continents long ago.
It suggests the continents were once joined or closer together, allowing the species to live across that connected land
Explain how human activity can speed up erosion.
Human activities like deforestation or overgrazing remove plant cover and increase erosio