Heat Transfer
What type of heat transfer occurs through direct contact?
Conduction
What happens to the density of material when it is heated?
It becomes less dense.
What is Earth’s thin, rigid outer layer?
Crust
What happened to the warm red-colored water in the lab?
It rose.
What is Earth’s crust broken into?
Tectonic plates
Explain the complete cause-and-effect chain from Earth’s internal heat to changes at Earth’s surface.
Earth’s internal heat creates temperature differences. Those temperature differences create density differences. Warm mantle material rises and cooler material sinks, producing convection currents. Mantle movement can help move tectonic plates, and plate movement can create mountains, volcanoes, ridges, trenches, and earthquakes.
What type of heat transfer moves thermal energy through the movement of material?
Convection
What happens to warm, less-dense material?
It rises
What is the thick layer beneath the crust?
Mantle
What happened to the cooler water near the ice?
It sank.
About how fast do most tectonic plates move?
A few centimeters per year
In which layer of Earth is convection especially important?
The mantle
What happens to cool, denser material?
It sinks.
Which layer is made of liquid metal?
Outer Core
Why did the warm water rise?
It became less dense than the surrounding water.
Mantle convection can help cause what major Earth process?
Tectonic plate movement
Name one source of Earth’s internal heat.
Heat left over from Earth’s formation or radioactive decay
What is a convection current?
A continuous circular movement caused by warm material rising and cool material sinking.
Which layer is Earth’s hot, solid center?
inner core
Why did the cooler water near the ice sink?
It became denser than the surrounding water.
Name two features or events that plate movement can create.
mountains, volcanoes, ocean ridges, deep-ocean trenches, earthquakes
Explain why heat moves from deeper inside Earth toward the surface.
Heat moves from hotter regions toward cooler regions because of temperature differences.
Explain how temperature differences create a convection current.
Heating makes material less dense so it rises. Cooling makes material denser so it sinks, creating continuous circulation.
Is the mantle a giant ocean of liquid magma? Explain.
No. The mantle is mostly solid rock that can slowly deform and flow over very long periods of time.
How did the lab model mantle convection inside Earth?
The warm water rose and the cool water sank, creating a circular current similar to the slow movement of mantle material.
Why can plate movement create major changes even though plates move only a few centimeters per year?
Small movements add up over millions of years and can create large changes to Earth’s surface.