Seafloor Spreading, Plate Tectonics: STEMScopes, Modeling Waves Through Various Mediums, Intro to Properties of Waves

Longitudinal Wave

A compression wave that moves in the same direction as the propagating medium.

Index Fossils

A fossil that is widespread, has lived over a relatively short period of time, and can be used to correlate rock strata.

Sound Waves

A pattern of disturbance caused by the movement of energy travelling through a medium such as water, air, or solid matter.

Seafloor spreading

A phenomenon by which magma pushes up through cracks in the lithosphere between the central valley of the mid-ocean ridge. When the magma pushes up through the center of the mid-ocean ridge, it forces the ocean floor apart.

Wave

A rhythmic disturbance that moves through a medium or a vacuum.

Plate Tectonics

A theory stating that the crust is broken into plates that move slowly on top of the mantle.

Transverse Wave

A wave that moves in a direction that is perpendicular to wave motion (i.e.. electromagnetic waves and seismic waves through Earth)

Mid-ocean ridge

An underwater mountain system form by plate tectonics and is the largest single volcanic feature on Earth

Lithosphere

Consists of the crust and part of the mantle

Trenches

Deep and narrow depressions in the seafloor where the subducted plate moves into the asthenosphere.

Reflection

Energy waves bouncing off the surface of an object

Transform Plate Boundaries

Found where two plates grind past each other without either producing or destroying crust, cause of earthquakes

Tectonic Plate

Huge pieces of crust that slowly move on the upper ductile part of the mantle.

Tectonic plates

Huge pieces of lithosphere that slowly move on the asthenosphere and consist of the crust and the rigid, uppermost part of the mantle

Subduction zone

In tectonic plates, the site at which an oceanic plate is sliding under a continental plate.

Transmitted

Passed something from one place to another.

Convergent Plate Boundaries

Plates moving together. Form when they collide, causes mountains to form.

Compressions

Regions of high density in a longitudinal wave.

Rarefactions

Regions of low density in a longitudinal wave

Divergent Plate Boundaries

Tectonic plates spreading apart, new crust being formed (ex. mid-ocean ridges, rift valleys).

Convection Current

The circular movement of heated materials to a cooler area in the mantle.

Medium

The material through which the wave travels.

Fossils

The mineralized remains of organisms, showing how long-dead organisms lived and how their bodies were structured.Index

Mantle

The solid layer of Earth between the crust and core

Crust

The thin and solid outermost layer of the Earth above the mantle

Absorption

The transfer of energy INTO a medium

Solid

Waves travel faster through this state of matter.

Gas

Waves travel slowest through this state of matter.

A change in frequency causes....

a change in pitch.

A change in amplitude causes...

a change in volume.

transverse wave

a wave that moves at right angles or perpendicular to the direction that it travels

wavelength

distance from any point on one wave to a corresponding point on the next wave, such as crest to crest or trough to trough

wave

disturbance that transfers energy from place to place

mechanical wave

energy that travels through matter (medium); examples include sound waves, ocean waves, and earthquake waves

Wave speed

frequency x wavelength

crest

highest point of a transverse wave

trough

lowest point of a transverse wave

medium

matter through which the energy of a wave travels; can be solid, liquid, gas or a combination of these

frequency

the number of complete waves that pass a point in a certain amount of time (measured in hertz)

Continental Drift

the theory that the continents were once joined and then slowly drifted apart

amplitude

total distance a wave moves from its resting position

longitudinal wave

type of wave in which the medium and energy travel parallel to each other or back and forth in the same direction