Chapter 1 Earth Science
Terms
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- Pangaea
- Wegener's name for the supercontinent meaning "all lands".
- Convection
- Heat transfer by the movement of a heated fluid,
- Asthenosphere
- A soft, bendable layer. Its material can flow slowly.
- Lithosphere
- Formed by the uppermost part of the mantle and the crust.
- Sea-floor spreading
- The process that continually adds new materials to the ocean floor. This was Hess's idea.
- Trasform boundary
- A place where two plates slip past each other, moving in opposite diorectinos.
- Inner core
- A dense ball of solid metal, made up of iron and nickel.
- Outer Core
- A layer of molten metal that surounds the inner core. made of iron and nickel.
- Convergent boundary
- The place where two plates come together.
- Deep-ocean trenches
- Forms where the ocean crust bends downward.
- Fossil can be formed from...
- A bone, tooth, shell, or other part of an organism.
- Conduction
- Heat trasfer by direct contact of particles of matter.
- Cast
- A copy of the shape of an organism.
- Relative dating
- This is used to determine which of two fossils is older.
- Mold
- A hollow space in sediment in the shape of an organism or part of an organism.
- Pressure
- The forces pushing on a surface or area.
- Absolute dating
- Allows sceintists to detmine the actual age of fossils.
- Radioactive elements
- Unstable elements that decay, or break down, into different elements.
- Fossil record
- The millions of fossils that scientists have collected.
- Half-life
- The time it takes for half of the atoms in a sample to decay.
- Subduction
- The process by which the ocean floor sinks beneath a deep-ocean trench and back into the mantle.
- Heat transfer
- The movement of energy from a warmer object to a cooler object.
- Extinct
- No members of that species are still alive.
- Faults
- Breaks in EArth's crust where rocks have slipped past each other.
- Scientific theory
- A well-tester concept that explains a wide range of observations.
- Density
- A measure of how much mass there is in a volume of a substance.
- Mantle
- A layer of hot rock.
- Petrified fossils
- Minerals dissolved in the water soak into the buried remains. Gradualy, the minerals replace the remains, changing them into rock.
- Plates
- Separate sections that break down the lithosphere.
- Wegener's hypothesis
- All the continents ahd once been joined together in a single landmass and have since drifted apart.
- Seismic waves
- When earthquakes occur, seismic waves are produces. The speed of these seismic waves and the paths they take revela how the palnet is put together.
- Convection current
- The flow that trasfers heat within a fluid.
- Geology
-
The study of planet Earth, which began in the 1700's.
- Rock
-
The material that forms Earth's hard surface.
- Constructive forces
- Forces that shape the suface by building up mountains and landmassses.
- continents
-
surrounded by oceans.
- Punctuated equilibria
- According to this theory, species evolve during short periods of rapid change.
- Geoligist
-
A scientist that studies the forces that make and shape planet Earth.
Geaoligists stugy the process that create Earth's features and search for clues about Earth's history. - Continetal drift
- Wegener's idea that the continents slowly moved over Earth's surface.
- Plate tectonics
- The geologic theory that states that pieces of Earth's lithosphere are in constant, slow motion, driven by convection currents in the mantle.
- Sonar
- A device that bounces sound waves off under water objects and then records the echoes of these sound waves.
- Rift valley
- Forms along the divergent boundary.
- Radiation
- The trasfer of energy through empty space.
- Fossil
- Any trace of an ancient organism that has been preserved in rock.
- Destructive forces
- Forces that slowly wear away mountains and, eventually, every other feature on the surface.
- Gradualism
- Proposes that evolution occurs slowly but steadily. According to this theory, tiny changes in a species gradually add up to major changes over very long periods of time.
- Sedimentary rock
- Layers of sediments build up and cover the dead organisms. Over millions of years, the layers harden to become sedimentary rock.
- Mid-ocean ridge
- The longest chain of mountains in the world.
- Granite
- A rock taht has larger crystals than basalt na dis not as dense. Granite makes up most ogf the continental crust.
- Basalt
- Dark, dense rock with a fine texture. Basalt makes up most of the oceanic crust.
- Crust
- The crust is a layer of rock that ofrms Earth's outer skin. There is oceanic crust and continental crust.
- Divergent boundary
- The place where two plates move apart.