Tectonic Plates

4. a German meteorologist and geophysicist who came up with the continental drift hypothesis
5. mountains formed in part by igneous activity associated with the subduction of oceanic lithosphere beneath a continent
9. a deep canyonlike structure found along the creat of some ridge segments
11. the action that drives the movement of tectonic plates
12. the crust that is less likely to subduct due to its buoyancy
13. the number of major plates which account for 94% of the Earth’s surface area
14. the largest tectonic plate
15. a boundary in which two plates slide past one another without creating or destroying lithosphere
18. supercontinent containing all of the existing continents
19. the amount of pieces the lithosphere is broken up into
20. a hypothesis proposed by Harry Hess which suggested that new oceanic crust is produced at the crests of mid-ocean ridges

1. a well-tested theory proposing that Earth’s outer shell consists of individual plates that interact in various ways and thereby produce earthquakes, volcanoes, mountains, and the crust itself
2. a chain of volcanic islands generally located a few hundred km from a trench where there is active subduction of one oceanic plate beneath another
3. elevated areas of the seafloor characterized by high heat flow and volcanism; found at divergent boundaries
6. a hypothesis which suggested that all present continents once existed as a single supercontinent
7. a plate boundary where the two plates move together
8. linear zones of irregular topography on the deep-ocean floor that follows transform faults and their inactive extensions
10. processes that deform Earth’s crust to create major structural features, such as mountains, continents, and ocean basins
16. a narrow, elongated depression of the seafloor
17. a plate boundary in which two plates move apart