Basic Facts Flashcards
What is the layer that contains the tectonic plates?
The Lithosphere
What is the layer that the plates float on?
The Mesosphere
The inner core is made up of
Iron and Nickle
What do the plates do at a convergent boundary?
The plates move toward one another
What happens at a divergent boundary?
The plates slide away from one another
At a transform boundary:
The plates slide past one another
What is the earth’s thickest layer?
The Mantle
What is the core?
The Earth’s outer core is a liquid layer, thick composed of iron and nickel that lies above Earth’s solid inner core and below its mantle.
What is Sea-floor spreading?
The formation of new areas of oceanic crust, which occurs through the upwelling of magma at midocean ridges and its subsequent outward movement on either side.
What is a ridge
A long narrow hilltop, mountain range, or watershed.
What is a mountain
a large natural elevation of the earth’s surface rising abruptly from the surrounding level; a large steep hill. Caused by volcanos
What is the mantle?
The Earth’s Mantle
Traveling beyond the Earth’s crust, we next encounter the mantle. The mantle extends to a depth of approximately 1,800 miles (2897km), and is made of a thick, solid, rocky substance that represents about 85% of the total weight and mass of the Earth.
What is the athensosphere
the upper layer of the earth’s mantle, below the lithosphere, in which there is relatively low resistance to plastic flow and convection is thought to occur.
What is a plate tectonic?
From the deepest ocean trench to the tallest mountain, plate tectonics explains the features and movement of Earth’s surface in the present and the past.
Plate tectonics is the theory that Earth’s outer shell is divided into several plates that glide over the mantle, the rocky inner layer above the core
What is Pangea?
Pangaea or Pangea was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It formed approximately 300 million years ago and then began to break apart after about 100 million years.
What is convetion
Convection - A method of heat transfer through fluids (liquids and gases) with the circulation of atoms. Includes hot air which is less denser than cold air :)
What is conduction?
Conduction: The transfer of heat from one substance to another by direct contact. Denser substances are better conductors; the transfer is always from warmer to colder substances
What is continental drift?
the gradual movement of the continents across the earth’s surface through geological time.
What is radiation?
Radiation - A method of heat transfer (infrared rays etc) from a light source, which can penetrate through vacuum etc. (ex- sun, light bulbs )
What is density?
the degree of compactness of a substance.
