Chapter 10 NOTES (Earth Science 8)

Tethys Sea

A body of water called the ______________ _____________ cut into the eastern edge of Pangaea.

evidence, opposed

Despite the __________________ that supported his hypothesis, Wegener's ideas were strongly ______________________.

rejected, moved

Other scientists of the time _____________ the mechanism proposed by Wegener to explain how continents _______________.

nickel, iron

The center of Earth is a sphere composed mainly of ________________ and _____________________.

rift valley

The narrow valley that forms where the plates separate is a ___________ _____________.

water

The tectonic plates ride on the asthenosphere in much the same way that blocks of wood float on _________________.

five

The three compositional zones of Earth's interior are divided into ________ structural zones.

crumple, thicken, mountain

When two plates that are made of continental lithosphere collide, the colliding edges ____________ and _______________, which cause uplift that forms large ________________ ranges.

ages, types

____________ and ______________ of rocks in the coastal regions of widely separated areas matched closely.

core

_______________ - the central part of Earth below the mantle

short, fracture zones

_______________ segments of a mid-ocean ridge are connected by transform boundaries called _________________ ______________.

mesosphere

_________________ - literally, the "middle sphere"; the strong, lower part of the mantle between the asthenosphere and the outer core

crust

__________________ - the thin and solid outermost layer of Earth above the mantle

pangaea, 300, 200

___________________ - the supercontinent that formed ____________ million years ago and that began to break up _______________ million years ago.

heated, density

*Convection* is the movement of ______________ material due to differences in ______________ that are caused by differences in temperatures.

single, ocean, Pangaea

*Panthalassa* - the _____________, large __________ that covered Earth's surface during the time the supercontinent ______________ existed.

plastic, slowly, move

*asthenosphere* - the solid, _________________ layer of the mantle beneath the lithosphere; made of mantle rock that flows very _______________, which allows tectonic plates to _______________ on top of it.

land mass, continents

*continental drift* - the hypothesis that a single large ___________________ broke up into smaller landmasses to form ______________________, which then drifted to their present location.

colliding

*convergent boundary* - the boundary between tectonic plates that are _____________________.

away

*divergent boundary* - the boundary between tectonic plates that are moving _______________ from each other.

solid, crust

*lithosphere* - the _____________, outer layer of Earth that consists of the ______________ and the rigid upper part of the mantle.

mountain, valley, apart

*mid-ocean ridge* - a long, undersea ________________ chain that has a steep, narrow _____________ at its center, that forms as magma rises from the asthenosphere, and that creates new oceanic lithosphere (sea floor) as tectonic plates move ______________

lithosphere, plates

*plate tectonics* - the theory that explains how large pieces of the ____________________, called ____________________, move and change shape.

sea floor, solidifies

*sea-floor spreading* - the process by which new oceanic lithosphere (________ ___________) forms as magma rises to Earth's surface and __________________ at a mid-ocean ridge.

form, break

*supercontinent cycle* - the process by which supercontinents ______________ and _____________ apart over millions of years.

sliding, horizontally

*transform boundary* - the boundary between tectonic plates that are __________ past each other ___________________.

mantle, overlying

As the __________________ material moves, the ________________ tectonic plates move along with it.

Mesozoic, Laurasia, Gondwanaland

About 200 million years ago (during the ______________ Era), the Pangaea began to break into two continents - ___________________ and __________________.

coastlines, fit, jigsaw

As people studied continental _________________ on maps, they noticed that the continents looked as though they would ___________ together like parts of a giant ________________ puzzle.

geography, dramatically

As tectonic plates continue to move, Earth's _______________ will change __________________.

terranes, rocky, Andes, alps

As the continents drifted, they collided with _______________ and other continents. Mountain ranges, such as the _____________ Mountains, the _____________, and the ___________, formed.

rises, away, sinks

As the hot material _______________, the cooler, denser material flows ______________ from the hot material and ___________________ into the mantle to replace the rising material.

molten, magma

As the ocean floor moves away from the ridge, _____________ rock, or ___________, rises to fill the crack.

liquid outer

Below the mesosphere is the ______________ ______________ core.

climatic, not

Changes in __________________ patterns suggested the continents had ____________ always been located where they are now.

plants, animals, connected

Fossils of the same ______________ and _________________ could be found in areas of continents that had once been __________________.

Africa, Australia, Antarctica

Gondwanaland also broke into two continents. One broke apart to become _______________ and South America. The other separated to form India, ___________________, and _________________________.

mid-atlantic

In 1947, a group of scientists set out to map the ____________________ Ridge. While studying the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, scientists noticed two surprising trends.

crack, rift

In the late 1950s, geologist Harry Hess proposed that the valley at the center of a mid-ocean ridge was a ________________, or ______________, in Earth's crust.

North America, Eurasia

Laurasia drifted northward, rotated, and broke up to form ____________________ and ___________________.

surface, less

Magma rises to the ______________ and cools to form the warm, light rock that sits higher than the surrounding sea floor because it is ___________ dense.

scrape, earthquakes

Plate edges at a transform boundary ________________ against each other in a series of sudden spurts of motions that are felt as ____________________________.

mountain, oceans

Plates are often bordered by major surface features, such as ______________ ranges or deep ________________ in the oceans.

identify, earthquakes

Scientists _____________ plate boundaries primarily by studying data from ___________________.

250 million, new supercontinent

Scientists predict that in ______________ years, the continents will come together again to form a ___________ ______________________.

supercontinents

Scientists think that, at several times in the past, the continents were arranged into large landmasses called ______________________.

size, shape, millions

Slow movements of tectonic plates change the ______________ and __________ of the continents over _______________ of years.

present

Slowly, the continents moved into their _____________ positions.

middle, edges, within

Tectonic plate boundaries may be in the _______________ of the ocean floor, around the ______________ of continents, or even ________________ continents.

oceans

Tectonic plate motion also caused new _____________ to open up and caused others to close.

death

The evidence that Wegener needed to support his hypothesis was discovered nearly two decades after his ______________.

continental, 1912

The hypothesis of ____________________ drift was first proposed by German scientist *Alfred Wegener* in ______________.

blocks

The lithosphere forms the thin outer shell of Earth and is broken into several ________________, or tectonic plates.

volcanoes

The locations of __________________ can also help identify the locations of plate boundaries.

convection

The movement of tectonic plates is part of the mantle _________________ system.

young, 4 billion, 200

The ocean floor is very ________________. While rocks on land are as much as _______________ years old, none of the oceanic rocks are more than ________ million years old.

solid inner

The outer core surrounds the _____________ ______________ core.

subduction zone

The region along this plate boundary (convergent boundary) is called a ____________________ _____________.

thinner, farther

The sediment that covers the sea floor is ___________ closer to a ridge than it is _________________ from the ridge

divergent, convergent, transform

The three types of plate boundaries are ______________ boundaries, ___________________ boundaries, and _____________________ boundaries.

subducts, scraped, accretion

When a tectonic plate carrying a terrane __________ under a place made of continental crust, the terrane is ___________________ off of the subducting plate and becomes part of the continent. The process in which a terrane becomes part of a continent is called _________________.

collides, subducts, less

When oceanic lithosphere ________________ with continental lithosphere, the denser oceanic lithosphere _________________, or sinks under the ________________ dense continental lithosphere.

rifting, continental, oceanic

____________________ - the process by which Earth's crust breaks apart; can occur within _________________ crust or ______________ crust.

terrane, geologic, continent

_______________________ - a piece of lithosphere that has a unique _________________ history and that may be part of a larger piece of lithosphere, such as a ____________________.

mantle

_______________________ - in Earth science, the layer of rock between Earth's crust and core

asthenosphere, plastic, slowly, tectonic plates

_______________________ - the solid, __________________ layer of the mantle beneath the lithosphere; made of mantle rock that flows very ______________________ , which allows ___________________ ___________________ to move on top of it

lithosphere, crust, mantle

__________________________________ - the solid, outer layer of Earth that consists of the _______________ and the rigid upper part of the _____________________