Vocabulary 1
Earth's layer of hard, solid rock
What is the outer layer?
A sudden shaking of Earth's surface
What is an earthquake?
Term for an ancient organism that has been preserved in rock
What is a fossil?
Where 2 plates meet
Evidence of matching Mesosaurus were found on these two continents
What are South America and Africa?
One of the very large sections of hard, solid rock that make up Earth' outer layer
What is a plate?
Layer of soft, solid rock underneath Earth's plates
What is the mantle?
The name of the supercontinent that Wegener hypothesized.
What is Pangea?
One pate moves underneath the other plate and sinks into the mantle
What is a convergent plate boundary?
The rate at which tectonic plates move on earth
What is 1-10 cm/year?
Something we observe to be similar over and over again
What is a pattern?
Any of the many processes in which gas, lava, and ash are pushed out on the surface of Earth
What is volcanic activity?
Wegener was interested in evidence that tropical plants were once on this continent
What is Antarctica?
Rock rises from the mantle and hardens, adding new solid rock to the edges of both plates
What is a divergent plate boundary?
This technology uses satellites and receivers are required in order to track plate motion.
GPS (Global Positional System)
A long, deep indentation in the ocean floor formed when 2 plates meet
What is a trench?
An underwater mountain range formed when 2 plates move apart
What is a mid-ocean ridge?
Wegener's hypothesis was rejected because he could not prove this
What is: How do the plates move?
At a convergent boundary, volcanoes are found on this plate
What is the overriding plate?
This is the location where the oldest ocean floor rock sinks back down into the mantle to be recycled.
What is a trench (subduction zone)?
How often or how fast something happens
What is rate?
When one plate is goes under and is burned up in the mantle at a convergent boundary
What is subduction?
Name of part of the supercontinent that includes South America, Africa, India, Australia, and Antarctica
What is Gondwanaland?
Boundary that is closest to us
What is a transform boundary?
The name of the deepest place in the ocean
Challenger Deep