Vocabulary 1
Evidence of life millions of years ago
What is fossils?
What do you call the theory that states that Earth's continents are slowly drifting away from one another?
What is continental drift?
What did early scientists observe on maps that made them believe continents were once joined?
What is the matching coastlines of continents (like South America and Africa)?
What is the layer beneath the lithosphere? (mechanical properties, not composition)
What is the asthenosphere?
Describe what happens at a transform boundary.
What is they slide past each other? (cause earthquakes)
Circular movements of hot/cold materials through the mantle
What are convection currents?
This term describes the slow movement of plates or continents over time.
What is drifting?
Fossils of warm-climate organisms found in Arctic areas support this idea
Consists of the crust and part of the mantle
What is the lithosphere?
Evidence from rocks and ___________________ make clear how Earth’s plates have moved great distances.
What is fossils?
Pangaea is known as a __________.
What is a supercontinent?
What kind of boundary forms when two tectonic plates move apart?
What is divergent boundary?
The Mesosaurus was found in both South America and Africa. What does this suggest?
What is the continent was once connected?
What is the main difference between the inner core and the outer core?
What is one is liquid and one is solid?
How do fossils of freshwater animals found on separate continents provide evidence that the conintents have drifted?
What is they were once connected because they cannot swim across oceans and did not likely evolve separately?
What kind of boundary forms when two plates are pushed together?
What are convergent boundaries?
At ridges in the middle of the ocean, magma rises, cools and solidifies forming new igneous rock... what is this called?
What is seafloor spreading?
These types of clues helped scientists develop early theories before technology confirmed them
What is fossil locations and map outlines?
What are the three main layers Earth is split into? (Composition, not mechanical properties)
What is core, mantle, crust?
Fossils of tropical plants found in Antarctica suggest what?
What is Antarctica was once in a different location, potentially near the equator?
Theory that Earth's outer layer moves across the surface
What is plate tectonics?
When a plate of higher density moves under a plate less density at a convergent boundary
What is subduction?
What does identical rock formations found on different continents prove?
What is they support the theory of plate tectonics and continental drift?
Describe how convection currents work to move tectonic plates.
What is heat from the core moves tectonic plates by a process of rising and sinking mantle material - this circulation drags the rigid plates across the surface of the Earth?
Describe the process of seafloor spreading
What is it shows magma rises and forms new crust, pushing plates apart?