Module 4: Tectonic Plate Boundary Types

Lava

Lava Magma that flows out onto Earth's surface.

Lithospheric Plates

Lithosphere Plates Tectonic plates consisting of the crust and upper rigid mantle

Magma

Magma Molten rock beneath the earth's surface

Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Mid-Atlantic Ridge Large divergent boundary in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, created by sea floor spreading at divergent plate boundaries.

Mount Saint Helen

Mount Saint Helen An active composite volcano in the Cascade Range in southwestern Washington that suddenly erupted in 1980 after being inactive about 130 years. It was created and erupts due to convergent plates that subducted more dense oceanic crust slides under the less dense continental crust.

Mountain Building

Mountain Building This occurs when two continental plates converge, collide or push against one another. The rock piles up, making a mountain range.

Oceanic Ridge

Oceanic Ridge Ridges form along divergent plate boundaries where magma upwells and rapidly cools in the deep ocean.

Plate Boundaries

Plate Boundaries Found at edge of Lithosphere plates, 3 kinds - convergent, divergent, and transform. Plates can grow, shrink, or stay the same.

Plate tectonics

Plate tectonics The theory that explains how large pieces of the Earth's outermost layer, called tectonic plates, move and change shape.

San Andreas Fault

San Andreas Fault A huge crack that runs through most of California that separates the North American and Pacific plates at a transform boundary.

Seismic Waves

Seismic Waves Vibrations that travel through Earth carrying the energy released during an earthquake

Subduction Zone

Subduction Zone A zone created when an ocean plate and continental plate collide (convergent boundary) causing the more dense ocean plate to sink below the continental plate and a volcano forms on the land on top. An earthquake can also occur.

Transform Boundary

Transform Boundary Boundary between 2 plates sliding past each other without destroying crust; causes earthquakes

Volcano Building

Volcano Building This occurs when convergent plate boundaries converge and the more dense oceanic crust sinks below the continental crust. The destroyed crust turns to magma and escapes through vents in the crust.

Andes Mountains

Andes Mountains A mountain range along the west coast of South America, which is the world's longest chain of mountains that was created as a result of convergent plate boundaries.

Convection Currents

Convection Currents Magma that is heated by the Earth's inner core, moves up through the mantle towards the asthenosphere, cools, then sinks again.

Convergent Boundary

Convergent Boundary A tectonic plate boundary where two plates collide, come together, or crash into each other. That makes mountains and can cause earthquakes.

Divergent Boundary

Divergent Boundary Boundary created when two plates pull apart from each other, resulting in an opening between the plates where magma rises and cools (creates new crust) and can cause earthquakes

Earthquake

Earthquake A sudden movement of the Earth's lithosphere caused by the release of built-up stress within rocks along geologic faults or by the movement of magma in volcanic areas

Fault

Fault A break in Earth's crust where transform plate boundaries slide or grind past each other.