Vocabulary
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Abraham Ortelius: First known person to suggest that the Earth had a supercontinent in the past.
Alfred Weneger: Developed the first scientific theory of a supercontinent.
Archipelago: group of islands.
Atmosphere: parts of the Earth in above the geosphere.
Biosphere: parts of the Earth where living organisms exist; the sum of all ecosystems.
Convection: process in which material is circulated by heat.
Convergent boundary: Also called "subduction zones." One plate moves on top of another.
Divergent boundary: two plates moving away from each other.
Geosphere: parts of the Earth where rocks and soil are present.
Harry Hess: Proposed that the seafloor was spreading.
Hydrosphere: parts of the Earth where water is present.
Lithosphere: Top-most part of the Earth; the surface.
Pangaea: A supercontinent thought to have existed over 200 million years ago.
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.
Seafloor Spreading: theory that explains how new ocean crust is formed at mid-ocean ridges, and old oceanic crust is destroyed at ocean trenches.
Subduction: process in which one plate moves beneath another.
Tectonic Plate: large parts of the lithosphere.
Transform boundary: Also called "conservative boundary." Two plates sliding up against each other.
Volcanism: Relating to volcanoes.
Last modified: Thursday, 6 May 2010, 1:21 PM