Theories vs. Laws
This explains why natural events happen and can change with new evidence. Plate Tectonics and Continental drift are examples of this.
What is a theory?
At this type of boundary, plates slide past each other, often causing earthquakes.
What is a transform boundary?
Earthquakes are an example of a ___ change to Earth’s surface.
What is a rapid change?
At this fault, rocks are pulled apart, causing one block to slide down (often at divergent boundaries).
What is a normal fault?
This type of crust is thicker, less dense, and forms the continents.
What is continental crust?
This type of scientific statement explains what happens and does not change.
What is a law?
When two continental plates collide, this landform is created.
What are mountains?
Volcanoes and mountains are examples of ___ changes to Earth’s surface.
What are slow changes?
At this fault, rocks are pushed together, causing one block to be forced up (common at convergent boundaries).
What is a reverse fault?
At this boundary, plates move apart, forming rift valleys or mid-ocean ridges.
What is a divergent boundary?
Plate tectonics is a scientific ___ because it explains how and why plates move and is supported by evidence.
What is a theory?
Divergent boundaries under the ocean form these underwater mountain chains, new crust is created here.
What are mid-ocean ridges?
This is the crack in the crust where earthquakes occur.
What is a fault?
This type of fault occurs when rocks slide horizontally past one another (like the San Andreas Fault).
What is a strike-slip fault?
This molten rock is found inside Earth; when it reaches the surface it’s called lava.
What is magma?
Alfred Wegner's theory of __________ is the idea that Earth's continents are not fixed in place but have moved over millions of years, slowly drifting apart from a single supercontinent called Pangaea into their current positions
What is continental drift?
This occurs when one plate is forced under another, forming trenches and volcanoes.
What is a subduction zone (convergent boundary)?
What causes magma to rise and form volcanoes at convergent boundaries?
Intense heat and pressure from subduction.
Name the type of fault that is linked to the different types of stress: tension, compression, shear
Normal = tension, Reverse = compression, Strike-slip = shear
This current in the mantle moves plates by heat rising and cooler material sinking.
What are convection currents?
This early idea described the movement of continents, but it was later replaced by a broader scientific theory that explains how and why Earth’s plates move.
What is the difference between continental drift and plate tectonics?
Name all THREE types of plate boundaries and ONE event or feature caused by each.
Convergent (mountains, volcanoes, trenches), Divergent (ridges, rift valleys), Transform (earthquakes).
Explain how convection currents in the mantle are related to earthquakes and volcanoes.
Convection currents move plates, which collide, separate, or slide, in turn creating earthquakes and volcanoes.
Explain what happens / what mechanisms are occurring when an earthquake takes place.
Stress builds (elastic deformation) at faults until rocks break or slip (elastic rebound), releasing energy as seismic waves (earthquake).
Scientists use these—things they can see, measure, or record—as data for forming theories.
What is an observation?