Vocabulary

Ijen volcano complex, Indonesia. Photo courtesy of flydime/Flickr. Licensed

CC BY.

Convergent boundary: Also called "subduction zones." One plate moves towards another.

Divergent boundary: two plates moving away from each other.

Lithosphere: Top-most part of the Earth; the surface. Composed of the crust and upper-most part of the mantle.

Plate boundaries: places on Earth in which two parts of the Earth interact with one another.

Plate Tectonics: theory that the Earth's crust is moving as a series of large chunks.

Tectonic Plate: large parts of the lithosphere.

Transform boundary: Also called "conservative boundary." Two plates sliding past each other.

Last modified: Monday, 5 December 2011, 4:04 PM