plate tectonics vocabulary

Vibrations that travel through Earth carrying the energy released during an earthquake.

• Seismic Waves

• conduction

• sea-floor spreading

• transform boundary

A break or crack in Earth's lithosphere along which the rocks move.

• fault

• crust

• radiation

• mantle

The soft layer of the mantle on which the lithosphere floats.

• inner core

• asthenosphere

• lithosphere

• mid-ocean ridges

The transfer of thermal energy by the movement of a fluid.

• convection current

• conduction

• radiation

• convection

A layer of molten iron and nickel that surrounds the inner core of Earth.

• outer core

• inner core

• radiation

• lithosphere

The direct transfer of energy through space by electromagnetic waves.

• outer core

• radiation

• conduction

• subduction

The direct transfer of thermal energy from one substance to another substance that it is touching.

• pressure

• radiation

• subduction

• conduction

A plate boundary where two plates move past each other in opposite directions.

• transform boundary

• convergent boundary

• seafloor-spreading

• divergent boundary

The movement of a fluid, caused by differences in temperature, that transfers heat from one part of the fluid to another.

• convection current

• convection

• plate tectonics

• conduction

The hypothesis that states that the continents slowly move across Earth's surface.

• deep-ocean trench

• sea-floor spreading

• plate tectonics

• continental drift