Tectonic Processes
A sudden release of energy inside the Earth that creates seismic waves; usually casued by movement of tectonic plates or volcanic activity.
What is an earthquake?
Oceanic feature are formed at divergent plate boundaries, cover approximately 70% of the ocean floor, and are the largest habitat on earth.
What are abyssal plains?
What is sedimentation?
What is a semi-diurnal tide?
The Name of the World's Oceans.
What are the Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Southern oceans?
The outermost layer of rock on Earth.
What is the crust?
What tide is formed when the Sun, Earth, and Moon form a right angle
What is a neap tide?
The level of transparency loss water has due to the presence of suspended particles in the water.
What is turbidity?
Difference in height between the high-tide mark and the low-tide mark over the course of the day.
What is the tidal range (or the tidal amplitude)?
The movement of cold, nutrient-rich water from deep in the ocean to the surface.
What is upwelling?
A region of molten rock within the interior of the Earth, between the core and the crust.
What is the mantle?
Give 3 examples of evidence supporting the plate tectonic theory
What are the geological matching of rock formations, distribution of fossils and living organisms, paleomagnetic stripes on the ocean floor and the jigsaw fit of the continents?
The low-lying triangular area at the mouth of a river formed by the deposition of sediments.
What is a delta?
A tide that occurs when the Sun and Moon are aligned, causing the largest tidal range?
What is a Spring tide?
ENSO stands for this weather pattern.
What is the El Nino Southern Oscillation?
The benthic, or bottom, zone between the highest and lowest spring tide water marks on the shoreline. Also referred to the intertidal zone.
A warm current that develops off the coast of Ecuador around December, which can cause widespread death with the local food chains.
What is El Nino?
A natural process where material is worn away from the Earth's surface and transported elsewhere.
What is erosion?
The location of the highest tidal range on Earth.
What is the Bay of Fundy?
It can reach up to 16.3 m!
The number of years that ENSO changes on average.
What are 3-5 years (sometimes as long as 7 years)?
A partially enclosed, tidal, coastal body of water where fresh water from a river meets the saltwater of the ocean.
What is an estuary?
What is the global ocean conveyor belt?
What TWO factors do scientists focus on when studying coastal morphology?
What are the slope of the shore and the size of the sediment found on the shore?
The coastal flooding of an abnormally high seawater level associated with low pressure weather systems.
What is tidal surge (or storm surge)?
Which reef grows vertically from the continental shelf or lagoon floor
Patch reef
The dense, basaltic layer of crust that makes up the bottom of the ocean basins.
What is the oceanic crust?
A coldwater current with low salinity levels that flows north along the western coast of South America, also called the Peru current.
What is the Humboldt current?
The wearing or breaking down of rocks through physical, chemical, or organic means.
What is weathering?
Other than gravity. Shape of the coastline, weather, and size of water body.
What are 3 factors that affect tidal range?
The downward movement of water in the sea due to densitty differences?
What is downwelling?
The theory supporting the possibility that continents are able to move over Earth's surface.
What is Continental Drift?
The study of the forms of things.
What is morphology?
What is a muddy shore?
Name of the highest Spring tides caused by the close proximity of the Earth and moon?
What is a King Tide?
A force that results from the Earth's rotation that causes objects or particles in motion to deflect to the right in the northern hemisphere?
What is the Coriolis Effect?