Layers of the Earth
The outermost layer of the Earth, where we live.
What is the crust?
What is continental drift?
This process by which new oceanic crust forms as magma rises to the surface at mid-ocean ridges.
What is sea-floor spreading?
The general term for bends in rock that form when compression shortens and thickens Earth's crust.
What are folds?
The study of the Earth's physical structure and substance, its history, and the processes that act on it.
What is geology?
This layer is located beneath the Earth's crust and is composed of semi-solid rock.
What is the mantle?
The scientist who first proposed the theory of continental drift in 1912.
Who is Alfred Wegener?
The evidence for sea-floor spreading comes from these formations that show symmetrical patterns of rocks of alternating magnetic polarity.
What are magnetic stripes?
A fold in rock that bends upward into an arch.
What is an anticline?
These are the boundaries where two tectonic plates meet, causing earthquakes and volcanoes.
What are plate boundaries?
The Earth's core is divided into two parts. Name the outer one.
What is the outer core?
This large landmass is what Wegener called the single supercontinent from which current continents drifted apart.
What is Pangeae?
This type of boundary is where sea-floor spreading occurs.
What is a divergent boundary?
A fold in rock that bends downward to form a valley.
What is a syncline?
An example of a transform boundary between two tectonic plates.
What is the San Andreas Fault?
This part of the Earth's core is solid.
What is the inner core?
Evidence Wegener used, found on different continents, such as similar fossils and rock formations.
What are fossils (or rock formations)?
Stripes of normal and reversed magnetic fields found on the ocean floor are proof of this process.
What is magentic striping?
This type of fold has one limb that is horizontal; the other limb inclined.
What is a monocline?
The process by which weathered rock particles are carried away by water, wind, or ice.
What is erosion?
This term describes the rigid outer layer of Earth, combining the crust and the uppermost part of the mantle.
What is the lithosphere?
One of the main geological features that helped prove the theory of continental drift, formed under oceanic crust.
What are mid-ocean ridges?
Sea-floor spreading helps explain this phenomenon where oceanic crust sinks into the mantle at convergent boundaries.
What are subduction zones?
The process by which the structure of Earth's crust is bent due to tectonic forces or stress.
What is folding?
The inner part of Earth that affects geomagnetic and tectonic activity on the surface.
What is the mantle?