Plate Tectonics Vocabulary

Front

Continental Drift

Back

The Earth’s continents were once joined together and later moved apart.

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3

Front

Plate Tectonics

Back

The lithosphere is made of many pieces that move relative to one another by floating on the asthenosphere.

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3

Front

Asthenosphere

Back

Portion of the upper mantle, just below the lithosphere or crust, where magma may form.

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-1

Front

Plate Boundary

Back

A fracture or edge that separates two tectonic plates.

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3

Front

Divergent Boundary

Back

A plate boundary where tectonic plates move apart from each other and new crust forms.

Front

Convergent Boundary

Back

A plate boundary where tectonic plates move toward each other and collide.

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3

Front

Transform Boundary

Back

A plate boundary where tectonic plates slide past one another.

Front

Subduction

Back

The process in which two plates of different density converge and the denser one sinks into the mantle beneath the other.

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3

NGSS.MS-ESS3-2

Front

Convection

Back

The upward and downward flow of fluid material in response to density changes produced by heating and cooling.

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-6

Front

Hot spot

Back

The hot upper mantle rock located within a plume and associated with a volcano on the crust surface.

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-1