AAP PLATE TECTONICS FUll

an active continental rift zone in eastern Africa that appears to be a developing a divergent tectonic plate boundary. It is part of the larger Great Rift Valley. The rift is a narrow zone in which the African Plate is in the process of splitting into two new tectonic plates and is home to some active as well as dormant volcanoes.

a ship that collected fossil samples from areas around the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, with the newest fossils closest to the ridge, giving evidence of seafloor spreading.

suggested that Hawaii and other volcanic island chains may have formed due to the movement of a plate over a stationary hotspot in the mantle.

a group of rocks that has attached itself to a tectonic plate and migrated away from its place of origin.

single Landmass thought to have been the origin of all continents

new rock on the ocean floor caused by seafloor spreading; the movement of ocean floor away form either side of a mid-ocean ridge

border formed by the collision of two lithospheric plates

looping pattern of flowing magma

sourthern landmass that broke away from pangaea and later formed South America, Africa, India, Australia, and Antarctica

the lithosphere: made up of the crust and a portion of the mantle, is divided into moving plates that ride on the denser asthenosphere: the layer made of plastic rock just under the lithosphere

boundary formed by two lithospheric plates that are moving apart

neither plate is subducted, because they have the same density, so the colliding edges are crumpled and uplifted, producing large mountain ridges including the Himalayas

the theory that all geologic phenomena may be explained as the result of existing forces having operated uniformly from the origin of the earth to the present time

region where one lithospheric plate moves under another

formed by the Eurasian and Indo-Australian plates colliding.

chain of volcanic islands formed along an ocean trench

hypothesis stating that the continents once formed a single landmass, broke up, and drifted into their present locations

hess suggested the hypothesis, later named seafloor spreading by Dietz, in which the valley at the center of a ridge is actually a rift in the earth's crust where magma wells up, creating new rocks.

an area in the basin of the Pacific Ocean where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur, and is a direct result of plate tectonics and the movement and collision of crustal plates

boundary formed where 2 lithospheric plates slide past each other (San Andreas)

a german scientist who proposed a hypothesis known as continental drift, which stated that the continents had moved

system of undersea mountain ridges that wind around the earth

a chain of islands created by the pacific plate moving over a stationary hotspot wehre the magma rises above the mantle and crust to erupt on the seafloor

a collision where the less dense oceanic crust is subducted under the denser continental crust

wegener found identical fossil remains of Mesosaurus, an extinct reptile, on both eastern South America and western Africa, and since they couldn't have swam all that way and there weren't any known land bridges, they must have been connected at some point.

deep valleys in the ocean floor

areas of volcanism within a lithospheric plate

a useful way of telling geologic time... radiometric dating is a method of obtaining a rock's age by measuring the relative abundance of radioactive and radiogenic isotopes

mirrored patterns of reverse polarity and normal polarity on the ocean floor, with the line of symmetry being an ocean rift

the supercontinent, Pangaea, began to break up, eventually forming the continents we know today

a major transform boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American plate

an intraplate earthquake that can be estimated to have an 8.0 or greater magnitude on the not yet invented Richter scale

stripes of reveresed polarity and normal polarity that can be found on the oceans floor symmetrically on the sides of a rift.

an area of the earth's crust wehre movements, sometimes volcanism, occur. it is also known as a seismic area

lava and pyroclasitc material built up on the earth's surface around a vent

the pace at which the earth's tectonics plates move

• global positioning system...
• using these you can figure out where a certain thing is and then measure the distance it moves

northern landmass that broke away from pangaea and later formed north america and eurasia

evidence of plate movement...

a deep ocean trench forms when these plates are subducted