Name: ______Date: ______Pd. ______
Earth Science Text Assignment
Chapter 1: Plate Tectonics
Directions: All questions must be answered in complete sentences in order to receive credit for the assignment.
Section 1 (pgs 6-13)
1. Describe what is happening on the south side of the island of Hawaii?
2. What happens when lava reaches the sea?
3. What has happened to the Earth’s surface over its long history?
4. About how deep is the deepest mine on Earth?
5. How deep is the Earth’s center?
6. What two types of evidence do geologists use to learn about the Earth's interior?
7. How so scientists obtain the rock samples from the Earth’s interior?
8. What do earthquakes produce to help scientists learn about Earth’s interior?
9. What do scientist’s record and study to learn about the interior from these events?
10. What characteristics of these events, specifically, do they rely on?
11. What are the three main layers of the Earth?
12. What is different about these layers of the earth?
13. Describe what happens to temperature as you descend into the Earth
14. Describe why pressure increases with depth.
15. What are the two types of crust and what is it composed of and where are each located?
16. What characteristics are used to divide the layers of the mantle?
17. Name and compare the three layers of the mantle.
18. What is the core of the Earth made of? What are the two parts called?
19. Overall, what is the total depth in Km, including the core, to the center of the Earth? How many miles is that? (1 mi = 0.62 Km) Show your calculation.
20. How are the Earth’s magnetic fields created?
Name: ______Date: ______Pd. ______
Earth Science Text Assignment
Chapter 1: Plate Tectonics
Directions: All questions must be answered in complete sentences in order to receive credit for the assignment.
Section 2 (pgs 14- 17)
1. What are the three types of heat transfer?
2. What is radiation and give an example?
3. What is conduction and give an example?
4. What is convection and give an example?
5. What is density defined as?
6. What are convection currents?
7. What three factors set convection currents in motion?
8. Make a diagram showing convection currents in the asthenosphere.
Section 3 (18-22)
1. What was Wegener’s hypothesis about the continents?
2. What did he name his supercontinent?
3. List 3 evidences that support Wegener’s idea of continental drift.
4. Why was Wegener’s theory ultimately rejected by his peers?
Name: ______Date: ______Pd. ______
Earth Science Text Assignment
Chapter 1: Plate Tectonics
Directions: All questions must be answered in complete sentences in order to receive credit for the assignment.
Section 4 (pgs 23-29)
1. What are some of the strange creatures that live near “vents” in the ocean?
2. What is the mid ocean ridge?
3. What is sonar and what does it show about features beneath the ocean?
4. Describe Harry Hess’s idea of “sea floor spreading”.
5. What types of evidence supported Hess’s ideas?
6. Explain how the three types of evidence from molten material supported the theory of sea floor spreading.
7. Two islands are measured to be 100 and 700 kilometers from the mid ocean ridge. Which island is younger and why?
8. What process occurs at deep ocean trenches?
9. How do subduction zones help recycle the Earth’s crust?
10. How long does subduction take?
11. Explain why the Pacific Ocean is shrinking.
12. Explain why the Atlantic Ocean is expanding.
Section 5 (pgs 32 – 36)
1. What did J. Tuzo Wilson propose about how the lithosphere is organized?
2. What is a “scientific theory”?
3. What does the theory of “plate tectonics” explain?
4. How can plates be moved?
5. What is produced when plates collide, pull apart or grind past one another? List specific examples.
6. What is a fault?
7. What are the three types of plate boundaries?
8. How do scientists detect movement of the plates and at what rate are they moving?
9. Define a divergent boundary, what forms as a result of this type of boundary?
10. Define a convergent boundary, what happens at this type of boundary?
11. Explain what happens when continental and oceanic crust collide?
12. Describe what happens when two continental plates collide?
13. Define a transform boundary, what is typically produces as a result of this type of boundary?