Rock Cycle
Mixtures of minerals that get mixed up and recycled hundreds of times over millions of years.
What are rocks?
A slow change that occurs when water, wind, or glacial ice carries broken down sediments away and moves them to a different spot.
What is erosion?
This is a hot, dense, constantly moving layer of the Earth which causes the tectonic plates on the crust above it to move.
What is the mantle?
A theory that states that the continents were once one single land mass and eventually moved apart due to plate tectonics.
What is the Theory of Continental Drift?
This is the way of determining a rock's age by comparing it to the age of rocks and fossils around it, not precise.
What is relative dating?
Composed of sediments that are compacted and cemented together.
What are sedimentary rocks?
A slow change that happens when rock breaks down, which is either physical or chemical.
What is weathering?
This is the top-most layer of the Earth which includes everything from the mountain tops to the ocean floor and is made up of plates that constantly move.
What is the crust?
The theory that describes how plates in the lithosphere move and cause seafloor-spreading, which is why Pangaea broke apart.
What are plate tectonics?
A fossil that went extinct after a short period of time and is therefore useful for finding the exact ages of the rocks around it.
What is an index fossil?
Rocks made by heating other rocks to form molten rock called magma and then cooling said molten rock.
What are igneous rocks?
A slow change that occurs when sediments that are carried away through erosion are dropped and collected in a new place.
What is deposition?
It is made entirely up of liquid iron, nickel, sulfur, and oxygen, and the movement of the liquid iron could be what causes magnetic fields.
What is the outer core?
This is an area where there is a diverging plate boundary and there is an undersea mountain range that is constantly creating new rock.
What is a mid-ocean ridge?
The law that states that all sedimentary rock layers always originally form horizontally, and any folding or tilting happened later.
What is the Law of Original Horizontality?
Rocks formed deep in the Earth by heating and pressuring other rocks.
What are metamorphic rocks?
It is a fast change caused by tectonic plate movements causing pressure until the Earth cracks.
What is an earthquake?
This is the center, and the hottest part of the planet. Despite the fact that it is the hottest part it is entirely sold iron and nickel.
What is the inner core?
This occurs at converging plate boundaries and is when one tectonic plate (denser) slowly slides under another (lighter).
What is subduction?
The law that states that any igneous intrusion or fault line that cuts through rock layers is automatically younger than anything that it cuts through.
What is the Law of Cross-Cutting Relationships.
One is formed with magma cooling slowly inside the earth, the other is lava cooling quickly outside the Earth.
What is the difference between intrusive and extrusive rocks?
When it erupts it is a fast change which happens when magma from inside the Earth gets pushed out and becomes lava outside the surface.
What is a volcano?
This is the section of the Earth which includes the entire crust and the upper-most section of the mantle, made of rigid rock plates that can move.
What is the lithosphere?
This is an early super-continent that broke apart to form our current continents due to seafloor-spreading.
What is Pangaea?
The law that states that, in sedimentary rock layers, rocks on the bottom form first, and therefore are always older than rocks on top.