Tectonics practice Flip cards

Question 1

earthquake

Answer 1

A sudden movement of the Earth’s crust. Earthquakes are caused by the release of built-up stress within rocks along geologic faults or by the movement of magma in volcanic areas. They are usually followed by aftershocks.

Question 2

epicenter

Answer 2

the point on the earth’s surface vertically above the focus of an earthquake.

Question 3

crust

Answer 3

The outermost layer of a planet. The crust of the Earth is composed of rocks.

Question 4

mantle

Answer 4

the part of the earth between the core and the the crust is the MANTLE. It is about 1,800 miles(2,900 km) thick and makes up nearly 80 percent of the Earth’s total volume.The mantle is made up of magma and rock.

Question 5

focus

Answer 5

The location where the earthquake begins.

Question 6

core

Answer 6

the central region of the Earth; it extends fourteen hundred to eighteen hundred miles from the Earth’s center. Note: The core is made primarily of iron and nickel and has two parts — an inner solid core and an outer liquid core.

Question 7

convergent

Answer 7

coming closer together

Question 8

divergent

Answer 8

moving in different directions

Question 9

transform boundary

Answer 9

A transform boundary (or conservative boundary) is where two of the tectonic plates slide alongside each other.

Question 10

subduction

Answer 10

the sideways and downward movement of the edge of a plate of the earth’s crust into the mantle beneath another plate.

Question 11

uplift

Answer 11

vertical elevation of the Earth’s surface in response to natural causes.

Question 12

continental plate

Answer 12

The lithosphere, which is the rigid outermost shell of a planet (the crust and upper mantle), is broken up into tectonic plates. The Earth’s lithosphere is composed of seven or eight major plates (depending on how they are defined) and many minor plates.

Question 13

oceanic plate

Answer 13

An oceanic plate is a tectonic plate at the bottom of the oceans

Question 14

tectonic plates

Answer 14

moving pieces of the earths crust that fit together

Question 15

transverse waves

Answer 15

a wave in which the medium vibrates at right angles to the direction of its propagation.

Question 16

longitudinal waves

Answer 16

a wave vibrating in the direction of propagation.

Question 17

volcanic mountain

Answer 17

mountain that forms when molten rock pushes up the Earth’s surface.

Question 18

magma

Answer 18

A mixture of molten or semi-molten rock, volatiles and solids that is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and is expected to exist on other terrestrial planets and some natural satellites.

Question 19

lava

Answer 19

is the molten rock expelled by a volcano during an eruption. … The molten rock is formed in the interior of some planets, including Earth, and some of their satellites. The source of the heat that melts the rock within the earth is geothermal energy.

Question 20

density

Answer 20

Density is a measure of how much mass is contained in a given unit volume (density = mass/volume). It is usually expressed in kg/m^3. Put simply, if mass is a measure of how much ‘stuff’ there is in an object, density is a measure of how tightly that ‘stuff’ is packed together.

Question 21

convection cell

Answer 21

a self-contained area in a fluid in which upward motion of warmer fluid in the centre is balanced by downward motion of cooler fluid at the periphery.

Question 22

fault

Answer 22

A crack in the Earth’s crust. Typically, faults are associated with, or form, the boundaries between Earth’s tectonic plates. In an active fault, the pieces of the Earth’s crust along a fault move over time. The moving rocks can cause earthquakes.

Question 23

normal fault

Answer 23

A geologic fault when two blocks of rock are pulled apart, as by tension

Question 24

reverse fault

Answer 24

A geologic fault in which the hanging wall has moved upward relative to the footwall. Reverse faults occur where two blocks of rock are forced together by compression.

Question 25

dormant volcano

Answer 25

A volcano that has not erupted for a long time, but may erupt again one day.