Science Vocabulary

Inner core

A ball of hot metals at earths center.

Outer core

The layer of liquid metals that surrounds the inner core.

Mantle

The Earth's thickest layer measuring nearly 2900 kilometers.

Crust

The thin layer of rock that surround the Earth.

Lithospere

The Earth's crust and the very top of the mantle combined.

Asthenosphere

The layer of hotter softer rock in the upper mantle.

Tectonic Plates

The large and small slabs of rock that make up pieces of the lithospere.

Continental Drift

The hypothesis that proposed that Earth's continents were once joined in a single landmass and then gradually moved apart.

Pangaea

I'm the name that Alfred Wegener gave to huge supercontinent that he propsed had once existed.

Mid-Ocean Ridge

The huge underwater mountain ranges that are present in every ocean and circle Earth.

Convection

The transfer of heat within a material.

Convection Current

The motion created when heated material rises,cools and sinks.

Theory of Plate Tectonics

State that the Earth's lithosphere is broken into huge moving slabs of rock driven by motions.

Divergent Boundary

Occurs when Tectonic Plates move apart.

Magnetic Reversal

The switch in direction of Earth's magnetic North and South poles.

Hot Spot

The area of volcanic activity that develops above rising plumes of Magma

Convergent Boundary

The place where older crust is destroyed because two plates converge,or push together.

Subduction

One plate sinks beneath another.

Continental-Continental collision

Occurs when plates with continental crust push together.

Oceanic-Oceanic Subduction

A plate with oceanic crust sinking under another plate with oceanic crust.

Rift Valley

The gap that form as Tectonic Plates move apart.

Oceanic-Continental Subduction

A plate with oceanic crust sinking under a plate with continental crust.

Transorm Boundary

Occurs when two plates move past each other in opposite directions.