Quiz 3- Ch.3/2

Question 1

Continental Drift

Answer 1

large scale movement of continents across Earth’s surface driven by plate tectonic processes

Question 2

Pangea

Answer 2

a supercontinent comprised of all the present day continents as we know them and then broke apart in the Mesozoic Era

Question 3

Seafloor Spreading

Answer 3

the mechanism by which new crust is created at mid-ocean ridges. As continents move apart magma wells up in the rifts and creates new crust spreading laterally away from the rift continually replaced by newer crust

Question 4

Number of plates and their composition

Answer 4

Earth is made up of 13 major plates and several smaller ones made up of rigid lithosphere all moving across the asthenosphere which is also in constant motion

Question 5

divergent boundaries

Answer 5

plates move apart and new lithosphere is created causing volcanoes and earthquakes at mid-ocean ridges (plate area increases) i.e. continental drift

Question 6

convergent boundaries

Answer 6

plates move together and one plate is recycled into the mantle causing deep sea trenches, earthquakes and mountains (plate area decreases) i.e. ocean-ocean convergence, ocean-continent convergence

Question 7

transform faults

Answer 7

plates slide past each other causing earthquakes and offsets in geologic features (plate area doesn’t change) i.e. mid ocean ridges, continental transform faults

Question 8

2 consequences of continental crust

Answer 8

1. because continental crust is lighter it is not as easily recycled as oceanic crust
2. because continental crust is weaker, plate boundaries involving continental crust tend to be more spread out and complicated than those involving oceanic plate boundaries

Question 9

Rodinia

Answer 9

supercontinent before pangea formed 1.1 billion years ago and began to split 750 million years ago

Question 10

mantle plumes

Answer 10

slender cylinders of fast rising materials less than 100km across that come from the deep mantle (i.e. Hawaii) They’re though to be the cause of mass extinctions

Question 11

seismic waves

Answer 11

ground vibration produced by earthquakes

Question 12

plate tectonics theory

Answer 12

theory that explains the creation and destruction of Earth’s lithospheric plates and their movement across Earth’s surface

Question 13

Geodynamo

Answer 13

the global geosystem that produces Earth’s magnetic fields driven by convection in the outer core