Download Study Guide for Plate Tectonics

Study Guide for Sea-floor Spreading / Plate Tectonics:
Please understand that these aren’t the only questions or words that we used. You are
responsible for ALL the material that we have covered:
- from the textbook…  from the movies we watched…
- from class discussions…  from the corrected worksheets
- from the models that I showed you, or the maps and models you made…
- from the computer projector / CD-ROM…
- from my awesome drawings on the overhead (yeah, right)
 What is a mid-ocean Ridge?
 How does sonar work? What did it show us?
 What is a magnetometer? What does it do?
 How are the magnetic stripes formed? How do they help explain sea-floor spreading?
 What is the Glomar Challenger? What does it do?
 How do the drilling samples help explain sea-floor spreading?
 What did scientists discover when they sent the submarine down to the mid-ocean ridge?
 What is sea-floor spreading?
 Describe, in detail, how sea-floor spreading works?
 How does sea floor spreading make continents “drift”?
 If the Atlantic Ocean is “growing” in the middle, pushing the continents further away, how
come the earth isn’t getting larger overall?
 What is subduction?
 What is a subduction zone? What is an oceanic trench?
 Why is the Pacific Ocean shrinking overall, if there is a mid-ocean ridge making it get larger?
 Why isn’t the Atlantic Ocean shrinking also?
 How does solid, clay-like rock create a “conveyor belt”? Describe the steps involved.
 How is the Earth like a check stand at the grocery store?
 What do the “wheels” turning in the check stand conveyor represent in the Earth?
 What does the “rubber belt” of the check stand represent in the Earth? The “groceries”?
 What makes these “wheels” spin inside the Earth? Describe this process?
 How does density play a part in this process?
 Why do hot things become less dense?
 How do convection currents help move the continents?
 In what layers of the Earth are these processes taking place?
 Where does the heat come from that drives these forces?
- What is a boundary?
- Why are there three types of boundaries? What are they?
- What type of boundary produces mountains? volcanoes? earthquakes?
- Why are there three types of CONVERGENT boundaries, when transform and divergent
only have one each? Explain each one.
 Why are there NO volcanoes found in the middle of continents, only on the edges?
 How does a trench form? What makes it become a “V-shaped” valley?
 Which piece sinks down into the mantle at a convergent boundary, and WHY?
 What is the difference between an “island arc” and a “volcanic arc”?
 When two continental plates collide, why aren’t there any volcanoes being made?
 When two pieces of oceanic plate collide, how come BOTH pieces don’t sink into the
mantle? What makes one piece “float” on the other?
 What is “slab pull” and how does it help sea-floor spreading?
 What is “ridge push”, and how does it help sea-floor spreading?
 What is satellite GPS, and how does it help show plate movement?
RELATED WORDS:
sonar
mid-ocean ridge
magma
convection currents
magnetic reversal drilling samples
divergent boundary
sea-floor spreading
acronym
rift valley
magnetometer
A.L.V.I.N.
asthenosphere
conveyor belt
quartz
density
ridge push
lithosphere
convection currents
granite
core
slab pull
mesosphere
continental crust
iron
radioactive decay
gravity
tectonic plates
oceanic crust
basalt
uranium
boundary
divergent
earthquakes
ocean trench
Juan deFuca
mountains
slab pull
continental plate
sea-floor spreading
convergent
volcanoes
Mt. St. Helens
Himalayas
satellite GPS
oceanic plate
transforms
subduction
volcanic arc
island arc
ridge push
mid-ocean ridge
San Andreas Fault
density
Andes Mtns
Philippines/Japan
gravity