Research Tools
Scientists use this tool to measure and record ground shaking during earthquakes.
What is a seismograph?
This is the name for the movement of ocean water driven by wind, temperature, and salinity differences.
What are ocean currents?
This greenhouse gas is produced by burning fossil fuels and is a major contributor to global warming.
What is carbon dioxide?
This theory explains how Earth’s outer shell is divided into moving plates.
What is the theory of plate tectonics?
This is the outermost layer of Earth where we live.
What is the crust?
This satellite system is used to measure precise locations and track plate movement.
What is GPS (Global Positioning System)?
This warm Atlantic Ocean current helps keep Western Europe warmer than other regions at similar latitudes.
What is the Gulf Stream?
This phenomenon occurs when ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean become unusually warm, affecting global weather patterns.
What is El Niño?
These are the three main types of plate boundaries.
What are convergent, divergent, and transform boundaries?
This thick layer beneath the crust makes up most of Earth’s volume.
What is the mantle?
Scientists use this technique, which bounces sound waves off the seafloor, to map the ocean bottom.
What is sonar?
This deep-ocean feature is formed at divergent boundaries and includes systems like the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
What is a mid-ocean ridge?
This layer of the atmosphere contains the ozone that protects Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation.
What is the ozone layer?
This type of boundary forms mountain ranges like the Himalayas.
What is a convergent boundary?
This part of Earth’s core is liquid and responsible for generating Earth’s magnetic field.
What is the outer core?
This type of imagery, captured from space, helps scientists monitor storms and climate patterns.
What is satellite imagery?
This process describes the global movement of deep, cold water and warm surface water driven by density differences.
What is thermohaline circulation?
This international agreement, adopted in 2015, aims to limit global temperature rise.
What is the Paris Agreement?
This process forms new ocean crust at divergent boundaries.
What is seafloor spreading?
This scale measures the strength of earthquakes based on energy released.
What is the Moment Magnitude Scale?
This dating method uses the decay of radioactive isotopes to determine the age of rocks and fossils.
What is radiometric dating?
This extremely deep trench in the Pacific Ocean is the deepest known part of the world’s oceans.
What is the Mariana Trench?
This natural process, involving evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, drives weather and climate systems.
What is the water cycle?
This supercontinent existed about 300 million years ago before breaking apart.
What is Pangaea?
This boundary separates the crust from the mantle and is named after a Croatian scientist.
What is the Mohorovičić discontinuity?