Plate tectonics year 9 Flashcards
What is the Earth made out of in the correct order?
Crust
Mantle
Outer core
Inner core
What layer of the Earth is the thinnest?
The thinnest layer of the Earth?
How thick is the crust?
The crust is between 8km and 40km thick.
Compare the Earth’s radius to just the crust
In comparison to the whole Earths radius ,the crust is very thin, like an egg shell.
Where is the crust thinner?
The crust is thinner under the oceans than it is on land.
What does the crust contain?
It contains rocks and minerals.
Whta does the Earth’s crust contain under the oceans?
Under the oceans, the crust is mainly basalt but under the continents it’s mainly granite.
What is the thickest layer of the Earth?
The Mantle is the thickest layer of the Earth.
What is the mantle made of?
The mantle is made of solid rock that can flow - plastic rock.
What causes the plastic rock to move in slow, big circles?
The plastic rock moves in slow, big circles caused by Convection Currents.
What happens to the magma closest to the inner core?
As the magma closest to the inner is heated (5000°C) it rises and then cools because the temperature is cooler near the crust(1000°C), causing movements.
What do the movements cause from the cooling and rising of temperatures?
Near the inner core the magma is around 5000°C whereas near the crust it cools to about 1000°C, causing movements - this is crucial to the formation of earthquakes volcanoes and tsunamis.
What layer of the Earth is semi liquid iron?
The Outer Core is semi liquid iron.
How hot is the Outer Core?
The Outer Core has temperature of about 5300°C.
How thick is the Outer Core?
The Outer Core is 2200km thick.
What does iron have to do with us living on the planet?
The fact that the iron is liquid here and iron is magnetic means that the Earth’s magnetic field is formed here which protects us from harmful solar winds and allows life on our planet.
What is the inner most part of the Earth?
The Inner Core is the inner most part of the Earth.
How thick is the Inner Core?
The Inner Core is 1200km thick.
Which layer of the Earth is the hottest?
The Inner Core is the hottest layer of the Earth - temperatures reach over 5500°C
Why is the Inner Core under lots of pressure?
Mainly made of iron and nickel - the material is under lots of pressure.
Is the material thin?
The material is not thin, it is very dense(4x more pressure than at the crust.
What causes the rock to be solid in the Inner Core?
The rock is solid in the Inner Core due to the pressure.
What is the German Geologists name who thought that the continents were all joined together?
The german geologists name was Mr. Wegener who had a theory that 100s of millions of years ago the continents were all connected and he called this Pangea.
What is a plate boundary?
A plate boundary is where two very large crustal plates meet on the earth’s surface. Earthquakes and volcanoes happen here.
