Download Plate Tectonics Vocab

Plate Tectonics Vocabulary
Vocabulary Word
Picture or Hint
Definition/Meaning
1. PANGAEA
The single landmass that broke apart 200 million years ago.
The broken up land became today’s continents.
2. CONTINENTAL DRIFT
The hypothesis that the continents slowly move across
Earth’s surface; Wegener ‘s theory
3. HEAT TRANSFER
The movement of heat from a warmer substance to a cooler
substance (there are 3 types)
4. RADIATION
The transfer or movement of heat energy through space by
waves (EX: feeling the heat from the sun or a fire w/out
touching it)
5. CONDUCTION
The transfer or movement of heat energy from substance to
substance by particles that are touching (EX: leaving a metal
spoon in a pot of hot soup - touch it & OUCH or walking on
hot beach sand!)
6. CONVECTION ***
EXPLAINS THE MOVEMENT OF PLATES
The transfer or movement of heat energy by the movement of
fluids (EX: a boiling pot of rice, lava lamps, mantle
movement)
7. DENSITY
The amount of mass of a substance in a given volume
(Density = mass/volume)
Denser sinks, less dense floats/rises
8. CONVECTION
CURRENT
The movement of a fluid, caused by differences in
temperature, that transfers heat from one part of the fluid to
another (found in mantle which causes plate movement)
9. ASTHENOSPHERE
Relatively soft, plastic-like layer of the mantle over which
plates float
10. FOSSIL
SAME FOSSILS FOUND ON DIFFERENT
CONTINENTS MEANS LAND MOVED!
Trace of an ancient organism that has been trapped in
sedimentary rock
11. MID-OCEAN RIDGE
An underwater mountain chain where new ocean floor is
made as plates pull away from each other and magma rises
up, cools and makes rock
12. SONAR
A device that determines the distance of objects under water
by recording echoes of sound waves (used to map the ocean
floor)
13. SEA-FLOOR
SPREADING
The process by which molten material adds new oceanic
crust to the ocean floor as plates are pulled apart
14. SUBDUCTION
The process by which oceanic crust sinks beneath a deep
ocean trench & back into the mantle at convergent plate
boundaries
15. SUBDUCTION ZONE
Deep valley along the ocean floor where oceanic crust slowly
sinks towards the mantle