Download Layers of the Earth, Continental Drift, and Plate Tectonic Overview

Layers of the Earth, Continental Drift, and Plate Tectonic Overview
Short Answer
1. What is the difference between continental and oceanic crust?
2. How is the lithosphere different from the asthenosphere?
3. How do scientists know about the structure of the Earth's interior? Explain.
4. Explain the difference between the crust and the lithosphere.
5. List three puzzling occurrences that the theory of continental drift helped to explain, and describe
how it explained them.
6. Explain why Wegener's theory of continental drift was not accepted at first.
7. List and describe three possible driving forces of tectonic plate motion.
8. How do the three types of convergent boundaries differ from one another?
9. Explain how scientists measure the rate at which tectonic plates move.
10. When convection takes place in the mantle, why does cooler material sink, while warmer material
rises?
11. Name and describe the type of tectonic stress that forms folded mountains.
12. Name and describe the type of tectonic stress that forms fault-block mountains.
13. If the Earth's crust is growing at mid-ocean ridges, why doesn't the Earth itself grow larger?
14. What was Pangaea?
15. Where would you expect to see the following features?
a. tall, wrinkled mountains in the middle of a continent
b. a long parallel ridge on the ocean floor surrounded by parallel zones of magnetic reversal
16. Explain the process of subduction.
17. Why are the Appalachian Mountains now located in the middle of the North American Plate?
18. What is a tectonic plate?
19. What was the major problem with Wegener's theory of continental drift?
20. Why is there stress on the Earth's crust?
21. Use the following terms to create a concept map: sea-floor spreading, convergent boundary,
divergent boundary, subduction zone, transform boundary, tectonic plates.
22. Why is it necessary to think about the different layers of the Earth in terms of both their
composition and their physical properties?
23. New tectonic plate material continually forms at divergent boundaries. Tectonic plate material is
also continually destroyed in subduction zones at convergent boundaries. Do you think the total
amount of lithosphere formed on Earth is about equal to the amount destroyed? Why?
Imagine that you could travel to the center of the Earth. Use the table below to answer the
questions that follow.
Composition
Structure
Crust (50 km)
Lithosphere (150 km)
Mantle (2,900 km)
Asthenosphere (250 km)
Mesosphere (2,550 km)
Core
(3,428 km)
Outer core (2,200 km)
Inner core (1,228 km)
24. How far beneath Earth's surface would you have to go to find the liquid material in the Earth's
core?
25. At what range of depth would you find mantle material but still be within the lithosphere?
26. Use the table below to answer the following question.
Seismic Waves in Material Densities
Material
Speed of earthquake wave (km/s)
Sediment
2.0
Granite
6.0
Basalt
7.0
Peridotite
8.0
An earthquake wave reached a seismic station 2,080 km from the focus in 347 seconds. Through
which of the above materials did the wave travel? Show your work.
Examine the diagrams of convergent boundaries and answer the questions that follow.
27. Which type of tectonic plates are colliding in A? Explain.
28. Which two types of tectonic plates are colliding in B? Explain.
29. Which diagram represents the type of boundary that creates some of the world's tallest
mountains? Explain.