1. What are the layers of the Earth? What is one fact about each layer?
5 minute check
October 7, 2013
What are the layers of the Earth?
What is one fact about each layer?
mission/index.html
3.1 - The student will describe the characteristics of the layers of the earth.

2. Listen to song- http://www.flocabulary.com/geology/

3. Let’s watch Bill Nye The science guy video Earth’s Crust
While watching the video I want you to fill in the Earth’s Crust Quiz

4. Closing:
What is “Pangaea” (whole earth)?

5. What is “Pangaea” (whole earth)?
5 minute check
October 8, 2013
What is “Pangaea” (whole earth)?
3.1 - The student will describe the characteristics of the layers of the earth.

6. Evidence for Plate Tectonics
Plate Tectonic Theory
Evidence for
Plate Tectonics

7. CONTINENTAL DRIFT
Alfred Wegener in the early 1900’s proposed the hypothesis that continents were once joined together in a single large land mass or super continent he called Pangea (meaning “all land” in Greek).
He proposed that Pangea had split apart and the continents had moved gradually to their present positions - a process that became known as continental drift.

8. CONTINENTAL DRIFT
According to the hypothesis of continental drift, continents have moved slowly to their current locations.

9. Pangaea about 200 million years ago, before it began breaking up.
Wegener named the southern portion of Pangaea Gondwana, and the northern portion Laurasia.

10. The continents about 70 million years ago
The continents about 70 million years ago. Notice that the breakup of Pangea formed the Atlantic Ocean. India’s eventual collision with Eurasia would form the Himalayan Mountains.

11. The position of the continents today
The position of the continents today. The continents are still slowly moving, at about the speed your fingernails grow. Satellite measurements have confirmed that every year the Atlantic Ocean gets a few inches wider!

12. Wegener’s Evidence for Continental Drift
Continents fit together like a puzzle….e.g. the Atlantic coastlines of Africa and South America.
The Best fit includes the continental shelves (the continental edges under water.)
Picture from

13. Wegener’s Evidence for Continental Drift
Picture from
Fossils of plants and animals of the same species found on different continents.

14. This hypothesis helped to explain why fossils of
plants and animals, along with matching rocks (strata),
have been found on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
Example: Applachain Mountains
And if the continents are put back to
their pre-drift locations the mountains
form a continuous chain.

16. Lystrosaurus - fossils of this little land reptile were found in Africa,
India, Argentina, China and Antarctica!

17. Wegener’s Evidence for Continental Drift
Rock sequences (meaning he looked at the order of rock layers) in South America, Africa, India, Antarctica, and Australia show remarkable similarities.
Wegener showed that the same three layers occur at each of these places.
Picture from

18. Seafloor Spreading
Everyone agreed that Wegener’s evidence was compelling. But wouldn’t we feel the movement?
Also, wouldn’t there be evidence to show that the continents were still moving today?
Wegener was a meteorologist and his theory was not well accepted. (He died on an expedition in Greenland collecting ice samples)

19. Seafloor Spreading
One reason scientists had a hard time with Wegener’s theory is that there was no mechanism for the continents motion.

20. Seafloor Spreading
In the 1960’s, a scientist named Henry Hess made a discovery that would vindicate Wegner.
Using new technology, radar, he discovered that the seafloor has both trenches and mid-ocean ridges.
Harry Hess proposed the sea-floor spreading theory.
Picture from USGS

21. Seafloor Spreading
Hess proposed that hot, less dense material below Earth’s crust rises toward the surface at the mid- ocean ridges.
Then, it flows sideways, carrying the seafloor away from the ridge in both directions.
Picture from

22. Seafloor Spreading
As the seafloor spreads apart at a mid- ocean ridge, new seafloor is created.
The older seafloor moves away from the ridge in opposite directions.
This helped explain how the crust could move—something that the continental drift hypothesis could not do.
Picture from

23. Evidence for Spreading
In 1968, scientists aboard the research ship Glomar Challenger began gathering information about the rocks on the seafloor.
Scientists found that the youngest rocks are located at the mid-ocean ridges.

24. Mechanism for Plate Tectonics
Seafloor Spreading provided insight to the mechanism for how the continents moved.
The magma which pushes up at the mid-ocean ridge provides the new land pushing the plates, and the subduction zones gobble up the land on the the other side of the plates.
Picture from
The mechanism was convection currents!

25. Plate Tectonic Theory
Both Hess’s discovery and Wegner’s continental drift theory combined into what scientists now call the Plate Tectonic Theory.
Theory of plate tectonics:
The Earth’s crust and part of the upper mantle are broken into sections, called plates which move on a plastic-like layer of the mantle

26. Plate Tectonic Theory Plate Tectonics explains Earthquakes Mountains
Volcanoes

28. Closing:
What is continental drift?

29. What is continental drift?
5 minute check
October 9, 2013
What is continental drift?
3.1 - The student will describe the characteristics of the layers of the earth.

30. Let’s review from yesterday
Alfred Wegener hypothesized what?
Supercontinent called Pangaea
What evidence did he use?
Similarities in the types of rocks and ancient fossils
In the 1960s scientists discovered what about the sea floor?
Between the crust and the mantle there were all cracks and each piece they called plates. They called the moving of these plates Plate Tectonics. They are in constant motion and if there is a continent on the plate then it too is moving.

31. We are going to watch a video on sea floor spreading

32. So why do the plates move????
First thing we have to understand that in the Asthenosphere there are convection currents.
But why do we have convection currents in the Asthenosphere???
Well the first thing we have to understand is that heat can travel three different ways
YUP 3!!!!
Example

33. So how do the plates move???
By convection!
Let’s see an example of what convection is
example we will need cold water and warm water
Students have a try at it, example

34. See convection currents lab
Fill the large beaker to EXACTLY 300ml, place in middle of draw
In the small beaker fill close to the top, but not so high that you cannot walk while holding it
Add EXACTLY 3 drops of food coloring to your SMALL beaker and stir with straw calmly till mixed
Bring your small beaker to the microwave and heat water for 30 seconds. Using a paper towel to hold the small beaker walk calmly back to your group.
Place a piece of tin foil TIGHTLY on your small beaker and drop it gently into the lager beaker carefully! Try not to spill!
Using your straw poke A (meaning 1) hole in your aluminum foil to let small beaker water out into big beaker.
Watch to see convection currents occur
Clean and dry all materials before you return them to the counter

35. Closing
What is convection heat?

36. What is convection heat?
5 minute check
October 10, 2013
What is convection heat?
3.1 - The student will describe the characteristics of the layers of the earth.

37. Plates on the Move
Now that we know why they move lets learn about the different movements plates can make

38. There are three types of plate movement

39. 1. Divergent An example is seafloor spreading
Plates are separating from each other as a new land mass forms
This is seen at mid-ocean ridges and rifts
Plate separation is a slow process. For example, divergence along the Mid Atlantic ridge causes the Atlantic Ocean to widen at only about 2 centimeters per year.
Even though most are under the sea, not all of them are, when two continental crusts begins to separate the stretched crust forms a long, narrow depression called rift valley. A rift valley is currently forming in East Africa, and might eventually be new ocean basin.

40. 2. Convergent
Two continental plates collide. & crumple the edges of the plates & form mountains.
We can see the end result of the collision between the Indian & Eurasian plates which are the Himalayan Mountains.
Picture from USGS
Picture from Author Hobart M. King

41. collision
Three types of convergent boundaries:
Continental-Continental
Oceanic-Continental
Oceanic-Oceanic
destruction
Produces a subduction zone, where the lithosphere is sliding back into
the mantle.

42. What type of convergent boundaries are these?
______________
_______________
Continental-Oceanic
Oceanic-Oceanic
Continental-Continental

43. Subduction
When an oceanic plate goes underneath or is subducted under a continental plate it is called subduction.
This forms a trench, or deep valley, where the plates meet.
An example of a subduction zone is the Marianas Trench where the Pacific Plate is subducting under the Eurasian Plate.
Subduction is another type of a convergent plate movement.
Picture from Author Hobart M. King

44. 3. Transform Two plates slide past each other
At transform boundaries crust is only deformed or fractured.
Example: San Andreas Fault in California

45. Flip Book for our notebooks

46. A Divergent B Convergent C Transform
plates are moving apart
new crust is created
Magma is coming to the surface
plates are coming together
crust is returning to the mantle
plates are slipping past each other
crust is not created or destroyed

47. A Divergent B Convergent C Transform
Continental crust
 rift valley
Oceanic crust  mid-ocean ridge
2 continental plates  mountain range
Plates move against each other
Stress builds up
Stress is released
earthquake
2 oceanic plates or
oceanic + continental
subduction

48. Plate Tectonics Vocabulary
Fault: a crack or fracture in the Earth’s crust along which movement, dislocation and overlaps of plates occur.
Plate Boundary: Where two or more plates meet

49. Transform
Convergent
Divergent

50. Closing:
What are the three main types of plate movements?

51. What are the three main types of plate movements?
5 minute check
October 11, 2013
What are the three main types of plate movements?
Video
3.1 - The student will describe the characteristics of the layers of the earth.

52. Friday Quiz

53. A Divergent B Convergent C Transform
plates are moving apart
new crust is created
Magma is coming to the surface
plates are coming together
crust is returning to the mantle
plates are slipping past each other
crust is not created or destroyed

54. A Divergent B Convergent C Transform
Continental crust
 rift valley
Oceanic crust  mid-ocean ridge
2 continental plates  mountain range
Plates move against each other
Stress builds up
Stress is released
earthquake
2 oceanic plates or
oceanic + continental
subduction

55. Plate Tectonics Vocabulary
Fault: a crack or fracture in the Earth’s crust along which movement, dislocation and overlaps of plates occur.
Plate Boundary: Where two or more plates meet

56. Transform
Convergent
Divergent