Plate Tectonics Vocabulary Practice

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Across
  1. 2. The region where two tectonic plates meet; interactions here (convergent, divergent, transform) produce earthquakes, volcanism, and mountain building.
  2. 5. extremely deep areas in the ocean that are created when one tectonic plate is pushed below another.
  3. 9. The thicker, less dense crust that makes up the continents; composed mainly of granitic rocks and generally older than oceanic crust.
  4. 10. A plate boundary where two plates slide past each other horizontally, commonly generating strike-slip earthquakes.
  5. 13. The thinner, denser type of Earth’s crust that forms most ocean floor; primarily basaltic in composition and continually created at mid-ocean ridges.
  6. 14. The process by which new oceanic crust forms at mid-ocean ridges as magma rises, cools, and pushes older crust away from the ridge, driving plate motion.
  7. 15. Vibration or shaking of the ground, as a result of movements within the earth's crust or volcanic action.
  8. 17. A large, mobile slab of lithosphere that carries continental and/or oceanic crust and interacts with other plates at its boundaries.
  9. 20. a crack in Earth's surface caused by moving tectonic plates
Down
  1. 1. The slow, heat-driven circulation of mantle material that transfers thermal energy and exerts forces on the base of tectonic plates, contributing to their motion.
  2. 3. A plate boundary where two plates move apart from each other; often associated with seafloor spreading, mid-ocean ridges, and formation of new oceanic crust.
  3. 4. A convergent boundary where one plate (usually oceanic) sinks beneath another into the mantle, leading to deep ocean trenches, intense earthquakes, and volcanic arcs.
  4. 6. A ductile, partially molten region of the upper mantle beneath the lithosphere that allows tectonic plates to move because it can flow slowly.
  5. 7. The rigid outer layer of Earth composed of the crust and the uppermost mantle; it is broken into tectonic plates that move relative to one another.
  6. 8. A plate boundary where two plates move toward each other; this can produce subduction zones, continental collisions, volcanic arcs, and mountain ranges.
  7. 11. a mountain or hill with a crater or vent through which lava, rock fragments, hot vapor, and gas are being (or have been) erupted from the earth's crust.
  8. 12. An underwater mountain chain formed at divergent boundaries where upwelling magma creates new oceanic crust and elevated topography along the spreading center.
  9. 16. The pattern of symmetrical, alternating magnetic polarity recorded in oceanic crust on either side of mid-ocean ridges; evidence for seafloor spreading and past geomagnetic reversals.
  10. 18. The unifying theory that explains the large-scale motions of Earth’s lithosphere through interactions of tectonic plates, accounting for the distribution of earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain ranges, and oceanic
  11. 19. Point on Earth's surface directly above an earthquake's focus