Plate Tectonics

5. the slow movement of Earth’s plates that carries continents or parts of continents toward or away from one another
6. the model that explains how Earth’s moving plates create landforms
7. the process by which liquid rock flows up and outward through a rift to form ridges of new crust on the ocean floor
8. the process of an oceanic plate sliding under another plate, which creates trenches and volcanoes
10. a mountain that forms on the ocean floor as a result of a volcanic eruption
11. the solid outer layer of Earth that floats on the hot, fluid mantle

1. the process of plates pushing toward each other, bending the Earth’s crust upward
2. the slow up-and-down movement of the hot, soft rock within the Earth’s mantle
3. a break in the Earth’s crust
4. a deep valley that forms when plates move away from each other
6. a section of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle that floats on the soft, hot rock of the mantle
9. a very deep, wide valley that forms on the ocean floor at a subduction zone
12. a long row of sharp mountains at an area of seafloor spreading