Grand Canyon
What region of the United States is the Grand Canyon located in?
West or south west region
What state is the Grand Canyon located in?
Arizona
What is a plateau?
an area of land that is relatively flat and significantly higher than the surrounding area
What is a fossil?
The remains of ancient animals and plants, the traces or impressions of living things from past geologic ages.
What is sediment?
Sediment is a collection of particles of rocks, minerals, and the remains of plants and animals.
The Grand Canyon would not exist without...? (it is a proper noun)
The Colorado River
What makes minerals inorganic?
Minerals are inorganic because they are not the product of something that is living or was once alive.
How many layers is Earth divided into? What are they?
Inner core, Outer Core, Mantle, Crust
Define a fossil fuel.
Non-renewable energy sources that are formed from the remains of prehistoric plants and animals.These include gasoline, coal, and natural gas.
Most of the rocks in the Grand Canyon are what kind of rock? Why?
Sedimentary rock because those rocks are formed when sediment is moved due to being weathered and eroded. Layers of sediment build up over time, gradually getting bigger and bigger.
How was the Grand Canyon formed?
Over time, the mountains wore down and the land became flat. oceans covered the land and a major disturbance occurred. The disturbance pushed up the seabed and created a plateau. The Colorado River carved out the Grand Canyon, it is because of this river, that we can see all of the rock layers.
What are tectonic plates?
Pieces of the earth's crust are broken into drifting slabs of solid rock called tectonic plates.
What layer of the earth is the hottest?
The inner core
Many fossils in the Grand Canyon are ___________ fossils.
Marine fossils
What are igneous rocks? Explain how they are formed and where they are found.
Igneous rocks are formed when hot liquid magma from earth's mantle cools into solid form. Igneous rocks are often found in volcanos
Explain the process of weathering and erosion. Compare that explanation to the Colorado River.
The Colorado River is SO powerful that is carries large pieces of sediment in its flow downward. These rocks act as tools because they chip off pieces of the riverbed as they are carried downward. The pieces of rocks are weathered and eroded due to the downhill flow, powerful current, water, gravity,y and temperature challenges.
Define fault lines.
Places where Earth's tectonic plates meet. The movement of the tectonic plates change the surface of the earth.
What layer of earth is the thickest layer? What is the layer made of?
The layer is called the mantle. It is an ocean of Semi-solid rock called magma
This includes all of the fossils that have ever been found. Scientists use these to help understand Earth's history.
Metamorphic rocks form from chemical reactions where one kind of rock is changed by pressure or heat into a new rock with different properties
1. Very powerful
2. Has kinetic energy because of moving water
3. Very steep
4. 1,450 miles long
5. Gets its name from the Spanish word red color
Explain what happens in each tectonic plate boundary and what is created by it.
Convergent: Two plates move toward one another perpendicular to the fault line. These create mountains
Divergent: Two plates move apart from one another perpendicularly to the fault lines. These create trenches and valleys. Earthquakes and volcanoes occur because of this.
Transform: Two plates slide past each other parallel, grinding along their sides as they go. This causes earthquakes.
What earth layer is the coolest? What does it hold?
The crust is the coolest layer of the planet. It holds the continents and the oceans.
Explain what kind of rock holds and preserves fossils the best and why.
What are trace fossils?
Sedimentary rocjks hold fossils the best because as sediment builds up, it traps and preserves the remains of living things.
Trace fossils are imprints and evidence of living things left behind in rocks. These may be footprints or an entire organism. These fossils help understand how and where animals rested moved or ate.
How do rocks change? Explain the rock cycle and what processes occur in it.
A process where rocks change from one type of rock into another. The creation and destruction of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary, through the processes of erosion, weathering, heat pressure, cooling, cementation, and time.