| A | B |
|---|
| Mid-Ocean Ridge | The longest chain of mountains : where the crust is splitting apart |
| Deep-Ocean Trench | A deep undersea canyon : where oceanic crust bends and sinks into the mantle |
| Plate tectonics | Theory / process where pieces of Earth’s crust are always drifting slowly- pushed by hot currents |
| Continent | A large mass of lighter rock floating on the mantle and above the oceans |
| Inner / Outer Core | made of dense iron (etc.) –makes heat. |
| Mantle | thick layer of melted rock with hot currents |
| Crust | light solid rock floating on Earth’s surface |
| Convection current | In a fluid – hotter- less dense things rise- cooler denser things sink in a stream |
| Fossils | The traces in rock of living things that died long ago |
| Alfred Wegner | a Scientist who put together evidence (fossils- mountains- coal deposits- etc.) that the continents were once joined as the supercontinent Pangea. |
| Earthquake | shaking that results from the movement of rock beneath Earth’s surface |
| Volcano | weak spot in Earth’s crust where magma has come to the surface |
| Weathering | chemical and physical process that break down rock at Earth’s surface |
| Erosion | process by which water ice wind or gravity moves weathered rock and soil |
| Deposition | process by which sediments settle out of the water or wind that is carrying it |
| Geoscience processes | dynamic process at work in the Earth’s landforms and surface- sometimes destructive and sometimes constructive |
| Geologic time scale | the geologic events and life forms in Earth’s history over a very long time |
| Tectonic plates | pieces of continental and oceanic crust |
| Catastrophic change | Sudden or violent change on Earth’s surface |
