Earth's Spheres
The four spheres of Earth
What are the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere?
The coolest layer of the Earth
What is the crust?
Wegener used mountain chains, fossils, and climate evidence to help support his ideas about this natural process
What is continental drift?
The place where an earthquake begins inside the Earth
What is the focus?
Volcano that has not erupted recently and is not likely to erupt in the future
What is extinct?
Two spheres interacting when plants take in carbon dioxide
What are the biosphere and the atmosphere?
Layer made of liquid metal
What is the outer core?
Scientists think that Earth's tectonic plates move due to this movement happening in the mantle
What are convection currents?
The place at Earth's surface directly above the area inside the Earth where an earthquake started
What is the epicenter?
Magma that reaches Earth's surface is called this
What is lava?
A "bonus" sphere that sometimes refers to frozen things on Earth
What is the cryosphere?
Solid layer under high heat and pressure
What is the inner core?
Crust is melted/recycled as two plates push together
What is a convergent boundary?
The order of seismic waves from fastest to slowest
What are primary waves, secondary waves, and surface waves?
Large and flat volcano that forms when layers of lava build up slowly over time
What is a shield volcano?
Two spheres interacting when wind blows sand across a beach
What are the atmosphere and the geosphere?
Layer described as "plastic-like" due to its semi-solid rock
What is the mantle?
Crust is formed/created as two plates pull apart
What is a divergent boundary?
The break in Earth's crust where rock can fracture as tectonic plates slide past each other
What is a fault?
Tall volcano that formed from both explosive pyroclastic layers and quiet erupting lava layers
What is a composite volcano?
Three spheres that can be impacted when a volcano erupts
What are the atmosphere (ash and gases released), biosphere (plants burned by lava), and geosphere (lava cools into new rock)?
This rocky upper layer of Earth is what makes up the tectonic plates
What is the lithosphere?
(floats on top of the semi-solid asthenosphere)
Crust is shifted/broken and energy is released as two plates slide past each other
What is a transform boundary?
Type of seismic wave that only passes through solid parts of Earth
What is a secondary wave?
This is the reason why many earthquakes and volcanoes happen along the Ring of Fire in the Pacific Ocean
What are interactions between plate boundaries?