Chapter 10 Review By Chelsey Roberts

Continental drift: Wegener’s hypothesis A german scientist, Alfred Wegener (1912), came up with the hypothesis of continental drift. Continental drift is the idea that continents were once joined to create one land mass, or a supercontinent, called Pangea. Evidence to back up Wegener hypothesis= fossil evidence, evidence from rock formations, and climatic evidence.

Sea floor spreading When new lithosphere is created by magma flowing through a ridge in the sea floor that cools and hardens. This was hypothesized by Robert Dietz.

Paleomagnetism Paleo = old Paleomagnetism – the study of the alignment of magnetic minerals in rock. Earth’s north and south pole has switch 4 times in 10 million years. Domains in an object are aligned, their fields combine to make the object magnetic.

Convection Energy from Earth’s core heat mantle material. Heated material rises through cooler/denser material. Cooler material flows from hot and sinks to replace the hot material.

Plate movement Three causes of plate movement: - Mantle Convection - Ridge push- cooling rock sinks and exerts force on the rest of the plate and pushes it away from the mid-ocean ridge. - Slab pull- force caused by the sinking of cold lithosphere into asthenosphere.

Types of plate boundaries Divergent- 2 plates move away from each other. Convergent- 2 plates collide. Transform- 2 plates slide past each other.

Surface features of boundaries Divergent creates trenches and ridges. Convergent creates mountains and volcanoes Transform creates Earthquakes.

Supercontinents Supercontinent cycle- the process of how supercontinents form and break apart. Convergent plates colliding cause continents to form together. Pangea (supercontinent) began breaking apart 250 millions years ago.