1. Plate tectonics The movement of the plates of the Earth’s crust and the effect of this movement. The Plates of the Earth’s crust are huge areas of the Earth’s crust separated from the rest of the Earth’s crust.

2. A Fault This is a break in the Earth’s crust. The Fault can be open to the magma of the mantle or just a crack in the crust. Faults occur along Plate boundaries and are where rocks have slipped past each other.

3. Divergent boundaries or Faults This is where two plates move apart or away from each other. The Mid-Ocean Ridge is the largest divergent Boundary and results is Sea Floor spreading. On Land when two pieces of a crust pull apart it is called a rift valley.

4. Convergent Boundaries These are when two plates collide together. In the ocean this occurs when one ocean plate dives below another plate. This is called a Subduction fault or deep ocean Trench. On Land when two plates collide, the land between them is pushed up and mountain ranges are formed. This is how the Himalayas and Alps Mountains were formed.

5. Transform Boundaries This is when two plates slip horizontally past each other in opposite directions, like rubbing two erasers together. These are called “strike-slip” faults because the land masses slide past each other. The most famous is the San Andreas Fault in California.

6. Normal Faults This is when one part of the Plate boundary falls down and the other boundary stays still or rises up. A good example of a normal fault is the mogollon rim running across Arizona by Payson. The cliff drops straight down 2000 Feet.

7. Reverse Fault This is when one boundary moves up above the other boundary. This occurs when ever the wall of a cliff hangs over the land below.

8. Pictures of Faults

9. Wegener’s theory of drifting Continents Wegener was a German scientist that proposed that the Continents were once joined together in one large Landmass called Pangaea. His theory was that the Continents drifted apart to form todays world continents. He called his theory Continental Drift and based it on similar fossils and land formations on different continents.

10. Earthquakes Earthquakes occur when two plates move against each other. The force that is created when these two large landmasses move send out shock waves through the earth called Seismic waves. The rumbling of the Seismic waves causes buildings and highways to collapse. The epi-center is where the earthquake occurred.