The area in Earth's upper mantle and directly under the lithosphere in which rock is soft and weak because it is close to melting.
What is asthenosphere?
100
A place along which two tectonic plates push together, characterized either by subduction or a continental collision.
What is a convergent boundary.
100
The area of Earth made up of the crust and the rigid rock of the upper mantle.
What is a lithosphere?
100
A place where a plate carrying sea crust sinks beneath another plate with sea crust.
What is oceanic-oceanic subduction?
100
A place where two tectonic plates scrape past each other.
What is a transform boundary?
200
A place where two plates carrying crust push together.
What is continental-continental collision?
200
A thin outer layer of rock above a planet's mantle, including all dry land and ocean basins.
What is crust?
200
A switch in the direction of Earth's special field.
What is magnetic reversal?
200
A layer of molten metal, mainly nickel and iron, that surrounds Earth's center.
What is an outer core?
200
One of the large, moving pieces into which Earth's surface is broken.
What is a tectonic plate.
300
The hypothesis that Earth's land masses move on Earth's surface.
What is continental drift?
300
A place where two tectonic plates move apart.
What is a divergent boundary?
300
The area of rock between Earth's outer core and crust, in which most rock is hot enough to flow in convection currents; Earth's thickest layer.
What is a mantle?
300
A hypothetical supercontinent that included all land masses on Earth.
What is Pangea?
300
An idea stating that Earth's surface is broken into huge pieces.
What is the Theory of Plate Tectonics?
400
The transfer of energy from place to place by the motion of heated gas or liquid; in Earth's mantle.
What is convection?
400
An area where a column of super heated material rises from deep within a planet's mantle and heats the lithosphere above it, often causing volcanic activity at the surface.
What is a hot spot?
400
A long line of sea-floor mountains where new ocean crust is formed.
What is a mid-ocean ridge?
400
A deep place formed as tectonic plates move apart.
What is a rift valley?
500
A circulation pattern in which material is heated and rises in one area, then cools and sinks in another area, flowing in a continuous loop.
What is a convection current?
500
A solid sphere of metal, mainly nickel and iron, at Earth's center.
What is an inner core?
500
A place where a plate carrying sea crust sinks beneath a plate with land crust.
What is oceanic-continental subduction?
500
The process by which a sea tectonic plate sinks under another plate into Earth's mantle.