Plate Boundaries
What type of plate boundary occurs where two plates move toward each other and can form mountain ranges or cause subduction?
Convergent boundary
What is the process that breaks down rocks into smaller pieces without changing their chemical composition?
Mechanical (physical) weathering
What is molten rock beneath Earth's surface called?
Magma
What is deposition?
The process of laying down sediment in a new location
What type of map data showing ages of islands can indicate plate motion over a hot spot?
Age distribution of volcanic islands (older to younger trend away from the hotspot)
Name the plate boundary where plates slide horizontally past each other and often cause earthquakes.
Transform boundary
Which agent of weathering occurs when water freezes in cracks, expands, and breaks rock apart?
Frost wedging
What type of rock forms when loose sediments are pressed and cemented together?
Sedimentary rock
Name two depositional environments
river delta, beach, lake bed, sand dune, glacial moraine
How can the pattern of earthquakes along a line give evidence of a plate boundary?
Earthquakes clustered along plate boundaries (linear patterns) indicate fault lines and plate interactions
What feature forms when two oceanic plates converge and one plate sinks beneath the other?
Deep-sea trench
Give two ways plant roots cause mechanical weathering.
Roots grow into cracks and pry rock apart; roots expand as they grow, forcing fractures wider
What process turns igneous or sedimentary rock into metamorphic rock?
Heat and pressure
How does a river create a delta?
As a river slows when entering a larger, still body of water, it drops sediment it carried, building a delta
Describe one piece of fossil or rock evidence that would support the idea that two continents were once joined.
Matching rock types and ages, or similar fossil assemblages across continents (e.g., identical fossils in South America and Africa) support prior connection
Describe how volcanoes form at divergent boundaries on the seafloor.
Upwelling magma rises as plates move apart, cools, and forms new oceanic crust (mid-ocean ridge)
Describe chemical weathering and give one example
Chemical weathering changes the minerals
Explain why the rock cycle is not just a simple circle
Because rocks can follow many pathways (melting, cooling, weathering, erosion, burial and lithification, heat/pressure) and processes can repeat in different orders
Describe how a hoodoo forms from weathering and erosion
Differential weathering: softer rock erodes faster than harder caprock; wind and water remove material around a resistant capstone leaving a narrow column supporting the harder top
How do glacier grooves in Africa help the theory of Continental Drift?
Africa's position with the equator would not allow glaciers to form there so the continent must have been in a different location long ago.
Explain why the Himalaya Mountains formed where the Indian Plate meets the Eurasian Plate.
The Indian and Eurasian Plates are continental-continental convergent; collision caused crustal shortening and uplift forming the Himalayas
Explain how wind, water, ice, and gravity each act as agents of erosion
Wind: transports and abrades particles; Water: transports sediments, carves valleys, forms deltas; Ice (glaciers): plucks and grinds bedrock; Gravity: causes mass wasting like landslides
Compare intrusive igneous rock and extrusive igneous rock
Intrusive: cools slowly below surface → large crystals (e.g., granite); Extrusive: cools quickly at surface → small crystals (e.g., basalt)
Explain why the capstone of a hoodoo often appears less weathered than the column beneath it.
The capstone is made of more resistant rock; it protects the column beneath for a time, and surface processes act differently (abrading sides more than the top), so weathering rates differ
Explain how seafloor structures (like mid-ocean ridges and trenches) and matching mountain ranges on different continents support plate tectonics and continental drift
Mid-ocean ridges mark seafloor spreading (new crust); trenches mark subduction; matching mountain ranges and rock belts on now-separated continents indicate they were once joined and later separated by plate motions