Layers of Earth
What is a plate? What is a plate boundary?
A plate is a large piece of Earth's crust. A plate boundary is the edge of a plate that interacts with another plate.
Scientists think continents were once a large single landmass that broke apart and then the continents slowly DRIFTED to their present locations. What is the name given to this hypothesis? Who proposed this theory?
What is continental drift? Alfred Wenger.
When the subducting plate (one that goes under usually oceanic) melts and the pressure causes magma to rise to the surface: creating a volcano.
Subduction is one plate pushing underneath another plate. If an oceanic plate and a continental plate collide, which one will push underneath the other one and why. What kind of plate boundary does this occur at?
What is the oceanic plate will push under because it is denser? This happens at convergent plate boundaries.
What is the water cycle?
How water moves through the different states of matter on Earth.
Where and how does a volcano form at a divergent plate boundary.
When two plates move away from each other magma from the mantle rises causing volcanic activity under the ocean at mid-ocean ridges. Is this also referred to as sea floor spreading.
What causes water to evaporate (water cycle)?
In the water cycle, heat from the sun will cause water on Earth's surface to evaporate.
Explain a transform plate boundary.
In a transform plate boundary, Plates slide past each other either in opposite directions or in the same direction at different speeds, causing friction.
What are the stages of the water cycle? What happens during each stage? (address temperature change and forces like gravity)
Evaporation: Heat from the sun causes water to evaporate from liquid to gas
Condensation: Water vapor cools in the atmosphere and collects to form clouds.
Precipitation: When water droplets become massive enough, gravity will pull them down to Earth's surface in the form of rain, snow, or hail.
Runoff and collection: When water hits Earth's surface, the water will flow from high elevation to low elevation and collect in streams, rivers, and flow to lakes or oceans
What would be the major reason there are no major earthquakes recorded in the interior of the continent of Africa?
What is the entire continent of Africa is located on a single continental tectonic plate?
What determines that viscosity of lava or magma?
What is the amount of silica ?
What is a sea floor spreading? Explain this process.
Divergent boundaries lie under the world's oceans. Here, plates move away from each other, and magma rises from the mantle to fill the space. The magma then cools into new crust.
Explain what a fault line is and its relationship to plate boundaries and earthquakes.
Not all fault lines are plate boundaries. However, all plate boundaries are fault lines. A fault line is a crack in the crust where earthquakes occur.
How does amount silica in lava and magma affect volcanic eruptions?
Lava and magma high in silica will have thicker magma/lava causing more violent and explosive eruptions whereas lava/magma lower in silica will move more freely like water and have less violent and explosive eurptions.