Marine Science I Honors - Plate Tectonics and Earthquakes

Flashcards for key vocabulary terms related to plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, and geological history.

Tectonic Plates

Pieces of Earth's crust and uppermost mantle, together referred to as the lithosphere.

Continental Drift

The concept that the tectonic plates have been slowly moving since about 3.4 billion years ago.

Lithosphere

The rigid outermost shell of the planet (the crust and upper mantle), broken into major and minor plates.

Fault

Where plates meet and their relative motion determines the type of plate boundary.

Crust

The outer rock layer of Earth chemically distinct from the underlying mantle layer

Lithospheric mantle

The mantle that makes up the deeper part of plates.

Asthenosphere

The mantle below the plates.

Convection

Allows plates to be driven (or moved) by cooling of Earth.

Divergent Boundaries

Exists between two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other.

Hotspots

Volcanic locales thought to be fed by underlying mantle that is anomalously hot compared with the surrounding mantle.

Convergent Boundary

An area on Earth where two or more lithospheric plates collide.

Convergent Boundary

A process known as subduction where one plate eventually slides beneath the other.

Continental collision

Phenomenon of plate tectonics that occurs at convergent boundaries and subduction zone is destroyed, mountains produced, and two continents sutured together.

Transform Boundary

Occurs when two tectonic plates move past one another.

Faults

Focuses areas of deformation or strain, which are the response of built-up stresses in the form of compression, tension, or shear stress in rocks.

Epicenter

The spot on the surface just above where an earthquake starts.

Seismic Waves

Ripples that travel out from the epicenter.

Richter Scale

Scientists base the magnitude on the strength and duration of the quake’s seismic waves.

Aftershock

Anothter temblor that can happen as the crust settles after an earthquake

Japan Earthquake Zone

Why Japan has so many earthquakes is that a number of these plates converge below the country's surface, mainly caused by the Philippines Sea Plate diving underneath the Eurasia Plate

Ring of Fire

The movement, collision and destruction of lithospheric plates under and around the Pacific Ocean.

Yellowstone Caldera

A large cauldron-like hollow structure that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption.

Pangea

Supercontinent from about 300-200 million years ago (late Paleozoic Era until the very late Triassic) where North America was contiguous with Africa, South America, and Europe.