Earth's Internal Structure and Plate Tectonics PDF

Earth’s Internal Structure and Introduction to Plate Tectonics This diagram of the earth’s internal structure comes from the American Museum of Natural History. Use this link to complete the matching activity below. You must double click on the activity below (it is a “DRAWING”) and then match the...

Earth’s Internal Structure and Introduction to Plate Tectonics This diagram of the earth’s internal structure comes from the American Museum of Natural History. Use this link to complete the matching activity below. You must double click on the activity below (it is a “DRAWING”) and then match the information to the correct layer of the earth by moving the textboxes. When you are finished, click the red star found in the introduction and test yourself. Introduction to Plate Tectonics Watch the BBC video, Earth: A Biography. The first 23 minutes of this segment introduce plate tectonics. In this short segment, the narrator takes you to different places around the world so you can understand the impact of plate tectonics. As you watch the video segment, take notes on the following: What is a “plate?” What do they “carry?” What layer of the earth are plates found? Th Earths surface is broken up in to pieces (plates) they carry the continents and the ocean floor. The plates are located in the mantle. What are convection currents? What layer of the earth are they found? The hot rock from the core rises to the surface pushin the crust apart and the cool rock goes down pushin the crust together.. After it spreads for a while the cool rocks goe back down making it into a cycle. They are found in the mantle. It pushes the crust The narrator first highlights Erta Ale in Ethiopia which is part of the Red Sea Rift, part of the Great Rift Valley. Then he goes to Iceland to explore the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. All these locations are divergent boundaries. What is a divergent boundary? Can you explain why volcanoes are located here? A divergent boundary is a boundary where plates are moving apart. Magma rises up to fill in the gaps creating new Earth’s crust/volcanos. What is Pangaea? Pangea is a super continent which was all the continents where joined together. The narrator travels to several famous mountain ranges. - the Southern Alps in New Zealand, the European Alps, the Andes and the Himalayas. How do convergent boundaries create mountains? When the the heat under the boundary of plates push against eachother What evidence can we monitor today that shows how mountains build we? We can monitor New Zealands mountains bcause millions of years ago the plates there collided and created mountains which sometimes you cann see them grow. The segment ends with an exciting whitewater rafting adventure on the Shotover River in New Zealand and a reference to some other large rivers on the planet - the Amazon River in South America and the Ganges River in India. What is the “power of water” on the planet? Water washes out the Earth and carries it to the sea. The Approximately 23 minutes into this segment, the narrator shifts focus to the importance of volcanoes and the link to life on earth. Feel free to view the rest of this if you want but you are not responsible for this content. Highlighted in yellow above are the locations used to model aspects of plate tectonics. Open Google Maps to find these locations and explore the area to help you understand what happens at the 2 plate boundaries from the video. Be prepared to label these on a map of the world!