Name_________________________
Earth’s Interior
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Period____
Core
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dense
Iron and ________________
Inner Core - solid
Outer Core – ________________
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Less ________________ than core
Upper ________________ is partially molten
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________________ layer
Very thin and rigid
Continental – ________________
Oceanic – ________________
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Consists of ________________, oceanic and upper part of ________________
Continents composed of granite-type rock, ________________ and feldspar minerals
Oceanic crust formed of ________________; basalt rich in iron/magnesium minerals
________________ is rigid layer of crust and mantle overlying partially-molten
asthenosphere
Mantle
Crust
Lithosphere
Continental Drift Evidence
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Researchers noted ________________ fit of continents
o e.g. ________________ and S. America
o Atlantic formed by separation of Africa from S. America
 Eduard Seuss, 1885, proposed super ________________ by studying fossils, rocks,
mountains
 Wegener and Taylor, early 1900’s, proposed continental drift and Pangaea
 ________________ supporting the idea that the continents had drifted.
o Geographic fit of continents
o Fossils
o Mountains
o Glaciation
 Problems
o Did not provide a plausible ________________ to explain how continents drifted
Seafloor Spreading
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Continental ________________ reexamined in 1960’s with new information
New________________developed – Seafloor spreading
Supporting evidence for seafloor spreading
 World seismicity
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________________
________________
________________
________________
Convection Currents
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In 1960, proposed as driving force to move ________________
Theory of Plate Tectonics
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John Tuzo Wilson combined ideas of ________________ drift and seafloor spreading into “Plate
Tectonics”
Earth’s outermost layer composed of thin ________________ plates moving horizontally
Plates________________with each other along their edges (plate boundaries)
Plate ________________ have high degree of tectonic activity
o ________________ building
o earthquakes
o volcanoes
Plate Boundaries
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Three types
1. Divergent Plates move ________________ from each other
 New ________________ is being formed
2. Convergent Ocean-continent
 Ocean-________________
 Continent-continent
o Plates are moving ________________ each other
o ________________ is being destroyed
o It is where ________________ are formed
3. Transform
o Crust is neither ________________ nor destroyed
o Plates ________________ past one another