Plate Tectonics - Vocabulary

The thin solid outermost layer of the Earth above the mantle.

• Crust

• Lithosphere

• Asthenosphere

• Core

The name of the single landmass that broke apart 225 million years ago and gave rise to today’s continents.

• Plate Tectonics

• Continental Drift

• Pangea

• Wegner

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3

The hypothesis that states the continents once formed a single landmass, broke up, and drifted to their present locations

• Subduction

• Continental Drift

• Plate Tectonics

• Pangea

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3

Earth’s dense center, made up of the solid inner core and the molten outer core.

• Core

• Crust

• Mantle

• Astenosphere

A section of the lithosphere that slowly moves over the asthenosphere.

• Sonar

• Lithosphere

• Crust

• Plate

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3

The theory that explains how large pieces of Earth’s outermost layer move and change shape driven by convection currents.

• Continental Drift

• Plate Tectonics

• Sonar

• conduction

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3

NGSS.MS-ESS2-1

The solid, outer layer of the earth that consists of the crust and rigid upper part of the mantle.

• Lithosphere

• Crust

• Asthenosphere

• Mantle

The layer of hot rock, between the Earth’s crust and core.

• Mantle

• Asthenosphere

• subduction

• conduction

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-1

The process by which oceanic crust sinks beneath a deep-ocean trench and back into the mantle at a convergent plate boundary.

• Conduction

• Plate Tectonics

• Subduction

• sea-floor spreading

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3

NGSS.MS-ESS2-2

The soft layer of the mantle on which the lithosphere floats and tectonic plates move.

• lithosphere

• mantle

• convection current

• asthenosphere

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3