Math is fun
_________________ is a scientific theory that explains how major landforms are created as a result of Earth’s subterranean movements.
Plate tectonics
The heat from radioactive processes within the planet's interior causes the plates to move, sometimes toward and sometimes away from each other. This movement is called plate motion, or __________.
Tectonic shift
_____________ occurs when an oceanic plate runs into a continental plate and slides beneath it.
Subduction
During the ___________ of __________ this supercontinent slowly broke apart.
165 million years, dinosaur existence
When two plates come together, it is known as a __________ boundary. The impact of the colliding plates can cause the edges of one or both plates to buckle up into a mountain range or one of the plates may bend down into a deep seafloor trench.
Convergent
When did the plate tectonics theory solidify?
In the 1960s
___________ occur along divergent plate boundaries, where new ocean floor is created as the Earth's tectonic plates spread apart. As the plates separate, molten rock rises to the seafloor, producing enormous volcanic eruptions of basalt.
Mid-ocean ridges
_________ are long, narrow depressions on the seafloor. These chasms are the deepest parts of the ocean—and some of the deepest natural spots on Earth.
Ocean trenches
What does the lithosphere include?
Two plates sliding past each other form a _______ plate boundary. One of the most famous transform plate boundaries occurs at the San Andreas fault zone, which extends underwater. Natural or human-made structures that cross a transform boundary are offset — split into pieces and carried in opposite directions.
Transform
How many major plates are there?
Seven/7
________________ is a geologic process in which tectonic plates—large slabs of Earth's lithosphere—split apart from each other.
Seafloor spreading
_____________ describes one of the earliest ways geologists thought continents moved over time. Today, the theory of __________ has been replaced by the science of plate tectonics.
Continental Drift
There are three kinds of plate tectonic boundaries: _________________.
Convergent, divergent, and transform
One of the most famous transform plate boundaries occurs at the ___________, which _____________.
San Andreas Fault Zone, extends underwater
What are the seven major plates?
The seven major plates include the African, Antarctic, Eurasian, North American, South American, India-Australian, and the Pacific plates.
Seafloor spreading and other tectonic activity processes are the result of _________________.
Mantle convection
A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.
Hypothesis
A __________ boundary occurs when two tectonic plates move away from each other. Along these boundaries, earthquakes are common and magma (molten rock) rises from the Earth's mantle to the surface, solidifying to create new oceanic crust.
Divergent
Natural or human-made structures that cross a transform boundary are offset — ___________________________.
Split into pieces and carried in opposite directions
What are some examples of the minor plates?
Some of the minor plates include the Arabian, Caribbean, Nazca, and Scotia plates.
_______________ is the slow, churning motion of Earth's mantle.
Mantle convection
At the beginning of the age of dinosaurs (during the Triassic Period, about 230 million years, ages ago, the continents were arranged together angle supercontinent called _______.
Pangaea
What is an example of a divergent boundary?
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge
What is an example of a transform boundary?
The San Andreas fault in California