Plate Tectonics Theory

The Mariana’s Trench marks the location where the fast-moving Pacific Plate converges against the slow moving ______ Plate.

Subduction processes in oceanic-oceanic plate convergence also result in the formation of ______.

When two continents meet head-on, neither is subducted because the continental rocks are relatively ______ and resist downward motion.

Such volcanoes are typically strung out in chains called ______ arcs.

About 40 to 50 million years ago, the boundary between the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate was oceanic-continental in nature and later on it became ______ convergence after the consumption of the Tethys Sea.

The zone between two plates sliding horizontally past one another is called a ______ boundary.

____ boundaries occur along spreading centers where plates are moving apart and new crust is created by upward movement of molten magma. The well-known divergent boundary is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

____ plates comprise the bulk of the continents and the Pacific Ocean.

The Pacific Plate, North American Plate, Eurasian Plate, African Plate, Antarctic Plate, Indo-Australian Plate, South American Plate are examples of ____ plates.

____ boundaries occur along spreading centers where plates are moving apart and new crust is created by upward movement of molten magma. The well-known divergent boundary is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The rate of spreading along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge averages about 2.5 cm/yr.

These smaller plates are often not shown on major plate maps, as the majority do not comprise significant land area. New Hebrides Plate, Okhotsk Plate, Philippine Plate, Scotia Plate, Somali Plate, Sunda Plate, Yangtze Plate are examples of ____ plates.

The friction between the plates can be so great that very large strains can build up before they are periodically relieved by large ______.

____ plates are often grouped with an adjacent principal plate on a tectonic plate world map. Their respective areas are less than 1 million km^2.

At the boundaries of the plates, rocks fracture, usually at many locations, creating a web of smaller plates with edges that rub and push relative to each other; these edges are called ______.

Earthquakes of tectonic origin are produced by sudden movement along ______ and plate boundaries.

A fault is a fracture or zone of fractures between two blocks of ______.

The fault slip is used to classify faults depending on the direction of the movement of rocks on one side relative to the other side; vertical movement is known as dipslip, while horizontal movement is known as ______.

Faults allow the blocks to move relative to each other. This movement may occur rapidly, in the form of an earthquake - or may occur slowly, in the form of ______.