Weathering Wonders
This is the process responsible for the movement of weathered rock material.
What is Erosion?
This type of weathering is the physical or mechanical break down of rock caused by natural forces.
What is Mechanical weathering?
Name one type of gradual change on the Earth's surface.
What are weathering, erosion, deposition, or tectonic plate movement?
This term refers to the idea that the Earth's continents have moved over geological time.
What is Continental Drift?
This acronym stands for Sound Navigation and Ranging, a technology used to map the ocean floor.
What is SONAR?
These are large pieces of Earth's lithosphere that are constantly moving.
What are Plates?
Name one of the three forms of weathering.
What is Mechanical, Chemical, or Biological Weathering?
This type of weathering can speed up the process of erosion and involves the breakdown of rock through chemical reactions.
What is Chemical weathering?
Name one type of sudden change on the Earth's surface.
What are earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or landslides?
This is the simplest evidence Alfred Wegener used to suggest the continents were once joined.
What is the "fit" of the continents, like a puzzle?
These are periods when the Earth's magnetic field reverses direction.
What are magnetic reversals?
This theory describes the large-scale motion of seven or eight major plates and many smaller plates of the Earth's lithosphere.
What is the Theory of Plate Tectonics?
Give an example of mechanical weathering.
What is frost wedging, root wedging, or abrasion?
This forms when pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides mix with water vapor in the atmosphere.
What is Acid rain?
This landform is a large mass of ice that moves slowly over land, carving out valleys and depositing sediment.
What is a glacier?
This type of evidence included similar plant and animal fossils found on widely separated continents.
What is Biological evidence?
This is the process where new oceanic crust is formed through volcanic activity and then gradually moves away from a mid-ocean ridge.
What is Sea Floor Spreading?
This Canadian scientist developed a third type of plate movement, where plates slide past each other.
Who is J. Tuzo Wilson?
Outline the process of frost wedging.
What is water entering cracks in rocks, freezing and expanding, and breaking the rock apart?
Name two types of rocks that are significantly affected by acid rain.
What are limestone and marble?
This is the name given to the "supercontinent" that Alfred Wegener proposed existed.
What is Pangaea?
Using this mountain range, Wegener explained how its similar geological structures across continents supported his theory.
What is the Appalachian mountain range?
This type of rock, containing minerals like iron, helped explain the patterns of magnetic reversals found on the seafloor.
What are igneous rocks?
This type of plate boundary occurs when two plates move towards each other.
What are Converging plates?
This phenomenon, common in Edmonton, is directly related to frost wedging and is especially noticeable on streets every spring.
What are potholes?
This type of weathering involves fluids produced by plant roots, fungi, bacteria, and some animals that cause chemical reactions.
What is Biological weathering?
Describe how the presence of coal in continents like North America, Europe, and Antarctica supports Wegener's theory.
What is coal forming in warm, swampy environments, suggesting these continents were once located closer to the equator?
This scientist provided crucial information about Earth's history, publishing his findings in 1915 and calling the supercontinent "Pangaea."
Who is Alfred Wegener?
Explain how deep-sea drilling provides evidence for seafloor spreading.
What is finding older rocks further away from mid-ocean ridges and younger rocks closer to them, as well as the increasing thickness of sediment with distance from the ridge?
Explain how convection currents in the mantle are thought to move the Earth's plates.
What are hot material rising, cooling and sinking, creating a circular motion that drags the plates along?