BIG IDEAS
This supercontinent existed roughly from about 335 million years ago until it began breaking apart around 200 million years ago.
What was Pangaea?
A long underwater mountain chain in the Atlantic where plates move apart and new seafloor forms.
What is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge?
The thick layer beneath the crust made of hot rock that can slowly flow.
What is the mantle?
The breaking down of rock at or near Earth’s surface.
What is weathering?
Molten rock below Earth’s surface.
What is magma?
Alfred Wegener supported continental drift with coastline fit, fossils, and matching rock and mountain belts on different continents. What key thing was he missing?
What was a convincing mechanism for how continents moved?
This belt around the Pacific Ocean has many volcanoes and earthquakes because of active plate boundaries.
What is the Ring of Fire?
This movement of hotter, less dense material rising and cooler, denser material sinking helps drive plate motion.
What is convection?
The movement of weathered material by water, wind, ice, or gravity.
What is erosion?
Magma that has reached Earth’s surface.
What is lava?
Yes or no: can earthquakes happen in the Ottawa Valley?
Yes. Old faults in the Western Quebec Seismic Zone and the Ottawa-Bonnechere Graben can still be reactivated.
The process in which one plate is forced beneath another and sinks into the mantle.
What is subduction?
At this boundary, two plates move toward each other.
What is a convergent boundary?
This older logarithmic scale was used to describe earthquake size.
What is the Richter Scale?
Rock formed when magma or lava cools and solidifies.
What is igneous rock?
This Canadian scientist helped connect mantle convection to moving plates, strengthening the modern theory of plate tectonics.
Who was Tuzo Wilson?
This subduction zone off western North America helped generate a huge earthquake in 1700.
What is Cascadia (the Cascadia Subduction Zone)?
At this boundary, two plates move apart and new crust is often formed.
What is a divergent boundary?
A scientist who studies earthquakes and seismic waves.
What is a seismologist?
Rock formed from layers of sediment that get compacted and cemented together.
What is sedimentary rock?
Identify the plate boundary shown on the left, middle, and right, and say about how fast tectonic plates usually move.
Left = convergent, middle = divergent, right = transform. Most tectonic plates move about 2 to 10 cm per year.
This huge Canadian region is made of very old rock, has thin soil and many lakes, and contains rich mineral resources.
What is the Canadian Shield?
At this boundary, two plates slide past each other and often cause earthquakes.
What is a transform boundary?
A series of large ocean waves usually caused by an underwater earthquake, eruption, or landslide.
What is a tsunami?
Rock changed by heat, pressure, or chemically active fluids without fully melting.
What is metamorphic rock?