Plate Tectonics
The theory that the Earth is broken into moving plates.
What is plate tectonics?
The thinnest layer of the Earth.
What is the crust?
The long process of heating, cooling, compressing, and weathering minerals that makes up rocks.
What is the rock cycle?
The breaking down of substances as rocks and minerals by chemical, physical, or biological processes.
What is weathering
In 1912, this German scientist proposed the idea that continents sat on a large crustal plate that, over millions of years, moved and carried the continents to their current positions of Earth.
Who is Alfred Wegener?
These move around or "float" on top of the gooey molten rock that makes up the softer mantle.
What are plates?
A boundaries where one plate subducts under crust that is less dense.
What is a convergent boundary?
The temperature of the Earth's core is hotter this.
What is the sun?
Rocks made from molten lava.
What are igneous rocks.
The movement of sediment or soil from one location to another by means of water, wind, or ice.
What is erosion?
Plates can also slide past one another to form this type of boundary.
What is a transform boundary?
As they crash into each other, one plate almost always slides under the plate.
What is subduction?
When plates move side by side these are often the result of this.
What are earthquakes?
The thickest layer of the Earth is known as this.
What is the mantle?
Rocks that are formed when many layers of sediment settle to the bottom of the ocean and are compacted over thousands of years.
What are sedimentary rocks?
When particles carried by water, ice, or wind are deposited in another location.
What is deposition?
What is a volcano?
Volcanoes and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin form a zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
What is the Ring of Fire?
Where plates are moving away from away this is formed.
What is crust?
The inner and outer core is composed of these metals.
What is iron and nickel?
Rocks that are created when sedimentary and igneous rocks change as a result of high heat and pressure.
What are metamorphic rocks?
Matter composed of a combination of minerals and organic matter along with a community of plants and animals.
What is soil?
This scale is used to help identify minerals.
Moh's scale of hardness.
The remains of plants and animals that are found in sedimentary rock.
What are fossils?
A mountain forms at this type of boundary.
What is a convergent plate boundary?
The thin layer that is between the crust and the mantle that holds it together.
What is the asthenosphere?
The most common rock on the continents.
What is granite?
The process of oxygen combining with another mineral; example iron to form rust.
What is oxidation?
When classifying objects found in the natural world, such as rocks, trees, insects, or fish, scientists use this tool.
What is a classification key?
Type of igneous rocks that cool inside of the Earth's surface.
What are intrusive igneous rocks?