Download Plate Tectonics Internet Scavenger Hunt

Name___________________________________Date______________________Period_______
Plate Tectonics Internet Activity
Directions: Follow the step by step instructions to walk you through the
This computer lab exercise.
Answer in complete sentences!
A. First, enter the following web address:
http://lg.eage.org/free/00040/index.htm
B. Click on “Introduction” Read the Introduction to answer the following questions:
1. What is the outer part of the earth made of?
2. How did other geologist’s feel about Alfred Wegener’s Hypothesis?
C. Click on “The Controversial Hypothesis” and navigate through the slides to answer the following
questions:
3. Who was Alfred Wegener and what did he suggest?
4. Who first noticed that the outlines of Africa and South America fit together like two
pieces of a jig saw puzzle? (Hint: it is not Alfred Wegener)
5. Could Mesosaurus swim across the ocean, why or why not?
6. What are the names of the four fossils that provided evidence
to help prove Pangaea once existed?
7. What present day continents used to be assembled, forming
the ancient super continent Pangaea?
8. So, were the animals living at the time of Pangaea able to
swim across the oceans?
9. What covered Pangaea 300 million years? Would this be considered a fossil, rock, or climate evidence?
10. What could Alfred Wegener not explain about his theory continental drift?
D. Click on “The Hypothesis becomes a Theory” and navigate through the slides to answer the following
questions:
11. What happened after the second world war?
12. What is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge?
13. What color is the youngest ocean rock (basalt)? What color is the older ocean rock?
14. How long ago was Africa and South America positioned side by side?
15. How old is the ocean crust that is green in color?
16. What is happening to the Atlantic ocean?
17. What pattern emerged on the ocean floor? What is it
called?
18. As the seafloor spread apart, how does the magnetism
of rocks oriented themselves with respect to the earth’s
present magnetic field? Do the rocks forming (cooling &
crystallizing) today show normal or reversed magnetism?
19. What’s the difference between positive and negative anomalies?
20. What color is the positive magnetic anomaly?
21. During the history of the Earth, what has shifted from normal to reverse?
22. What recorded the change or shift in the earth’s magnetic field?
23. During the last 5 million years, how many times has the earth’s magnetic field shifted?
24. What is the Ring of Fire?
25. What do you notice about the pattern of volcanoes and earthquakes?
E. Click on “the Driving force” and navigate through the slides to answer the following questions:
26. What is the driving force behind plate tectonics?
27. How do convection currents work in a pot of water?
28. How does convection work inside the earth?
F. Click on the “Converging Plates” and navigate through
the slides to answer the following questions:
29. What do we call where two plates are converging together?
30. What are the three types of convergent plate boundaries?
1-
2331. What type of convergent boundary is Japan located at?
32. What is happening to the Pacific plate?
33. What happens as the Pacific plate subducts beneath the
Eurasian plate?
34. As the plate melts, how does it make it back up to the surface?
35. What is happening to the Nazca plate?
36. When did India collide with Eurasia?
37. How did the Himalayan Mountains form?
How long ago did they form?
G. Click on the “Diverging Plates” and navigate
through the slides to answer the following
questions:
38. What do we call it when two Lithosphereic
plates are moving away from each other?
39. What is happening to Iceland?
40. What is happening to East Africa?
41. What will eventually form in between East and West Africa?
H. Click on the “Transform Faults” and navigate through the slides to
answer the following questions:
42. How fast is the Pacific plate moving relative to the North
American plate?
43. What will eventually happen to L.A.?
I. Click on the “The Velocity of the Plates” and navigate through the slides to
answer the following questions:
44. How did the Hawaiian Islands form?
45. What is the oldest Hawaiian Island? What is the youngest?
46. How fast does the Pacific plate move over the Hot spot?
47. How fast is the Pacific Plate moving away from the Nazca plate? (In a year)
J. Click on the “Summary” to answer the following questions:
48. Was Alfred Wegener’s hypothesis on Continental drift accepted by the geologic community?
49. After World War II, what observations supported Wegener’s hypothesis?
50. Where do most earthquakes and volcanoes occur?
51. What is formed when an oceanic plate and a continental plate move toward each other? What
eventually happens to the oceanic plate as it is brought into the mantle?
52. How did the Himalayan Mountains form?
53. When two oceanic plates move apart, what forms between them?
54. On average, how fast do the lithosphere plates move a year?