History
The German Meteorologist proposed the theory of continental drift in 1912, suggesting that continents were apart of a single landmass.
Who is Alfred Wegener?
The Himalayan mountain range is an example of this type of plate boundary, where the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate are colliding.
What is a convergent plate boundary?
This geologic feature forms when an oceanic plate is forced under a continental plate at a subduction zone, often leading to volcanic activity.
What is a subduction zone?
This is the point on the Earth's surface directly above where an earthquake originates.
What is the Epicenter?
These curved chains of volcanoes are formed at convergent plate boundaries, where one tectonic plate is subducted beneath another. The Andes Mountains in South America and the Japanese Archipelago are both examples of this feature.
What are volcanic arcs?
This event in the 1960s demonstrated that ocean ridges were areas of active volcanic activity and helped scientists understand the movement of tectonic plates.
What is the discovery of mid-ocean ridges?
The East African Rift Valley is a classic example of this type of boundary, where two tectonic plates are moving apart.
What is a divergent plate boundary?
The theory of plate tectonics helped explain the occurrence of this natural disaster, which is often caused by the movement of tectonic plates.
What is an earthquake?
This term describes the location beneath the Earth's surface where an earthquake actually occurs.
What is the focus?
These volcanoes form when magma erupts through long cracks or fissures in the Earth’s crust, rather than a central vent, often creating large, flat lava plateaus. One famous example is the Columbia River Plateau.
What are fissure volcanoes?
This is the name of the supercontinent that existed around 300 million years ago, before breaking apart into the continents we know today.
What is Pangea?
This boundary, located in the Pacific Ocean, is the site of the San Andreas Fault, where the Pacific Plate and North American Plate slide past each other.
What is a transform plate boundary?
The process by which new oceanic crust is created at mid-ocean ridges is called this.
What is upwelling?
Earthquakes that occur when two blocks of the Earth’s crust move past each other horizontally are typically associated with this type of fault.
What is a strike-slip fault?
The Ring of Fire, a region with frequent volcanic eruptions, is associated with subduction zones around this ocean.
This theory, developed in the 1960s, explains how the Earth's lithosphere is divided into plates that float on the semi-fluid asthenosphere.
What is the theory of plate tectonics?
This process moves the plates on top of a semi-liquid layer.
What is convection?
The collision of the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate has formed this mountain range, which continues to rise today.
What are the Himalayas?
These seismic waves are the fastest and first to be detected by seismographs during an earthquake.
What are P-Waves?
This is caused when plates move over an opening in the Earth's lithosphere causing new land to form over time. Example - Hawaii
What is a hotspot?
This 1965 discovery provided evidence of sea-floor spreading and helped explain why oceanic crust is younger than continental crust.
What is the age of the ocean floor?
This is a semi-liquid layer in the mantle that helps the lithospheric plates move.
What is the asthenosphere?
This long, underwater mountain range, the longest of its kind on Earth, is formed by tectonic plates pulling apart at divergent boundaries.
What is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
This scale measures the magnitude of an earthquake, based on the amplitude of seismic waves recorded by seismographs.
What is the Richter Scale?
This "hotspot" beneath the Pacific Plate is responsible for the formation of the Hawaiian Islands as the plate moves over it.
What is the Hawaiian hot spot?