chapter 17 vocab

Pangaea

A Greek word that means," all the earth."

Magnetic Reversal

A change in Earth's magnetic field.

Magnetometer

A device that can detect small changes in magnetic fields.

Isochron

A line on a map that connects points that have the same age.

Transform Boundary

A place where two plates slide horizontally past each other.

Divergent Boundary

Places where two tectonic plates are moving apart.

Convergent Boundary

Places where two tectonic plates are moving toward each other.

Continental Drift

Proposed that Earth's continents has once been joined as a single landmass

Theory Of Plate Tectonics

States that Earth's crust and rigid upper mantle are broken into enormous slabs called plates.

Seafloor Spreading

States that new ocean crust is formed at ocean ridges and destroyed at deep-sea trenches.

Subduction

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

Paleomagnetism

The study of a magnetic record.

Slab Pull

The weight of a subducting plate helps pull the trailing lithosphere into the subduction zone.

Ridge Push

The weight of the uplifted ridge is thought to push an oceanic plate toward the trench formed at the subduction zone.

Rift Valley

When continental crust begins to separate, the stretched crust forms a long, narrow depression.