Review: Chapter 1- Plate Tectonics

Directions: Use your chapter 1.1 and 1.2 notes to complete the following questions.

1. What is the Big Idea of Chapter 1?

2. List the four layers of the Earth, beginning with the layer that is the densest and ending with the layer that is the least dense.

3. Open your book to page 19. Use the diagram to list the ten major tectonic plates that cover the Earth.

4. What is the theory of plate tectonics (look at the end of 1.2 notes)?

5. How old is the Earth? How do scientists believe that it formed? Explain.

6. What two “spheres” are the top of the mantle and the crust? Which layer is hotter and softer? Which is made of tectonic plates?

7. How do we know what Earth is like deep inside?

8. What is the difference between crust under the continents and crust under the oceans? What do we call these two types of crust?

9. Who provided the hypothesis for continental drift? What is this hypothesis? What giant landmass did it start with?

10. What were the three types of evidence that proved continental drift? Explain

11. What are mid-ocean ridges and what happens in the center of these areas? BONUS: What ridge is responsible for the Atlantic Ocean getting larger?

12. How do we know that the seafloor is spreading?

13. What happens along an ocean trench? BONUS: What is the deepest trench in the world?

14. What currents cause rock in the mantle to move? Draw a diagram showing how they work.

15. Explain how slab pull and ridge push move recycle crust and move tectonic plates.