Tectonic Plate Vocabulary

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

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

• Lithosphere

• Crust

• Asthenosphere

• Mantle

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 process by which new oceanic lithosphere forms as magma rises toward the surface and solidifies.

• Subduction

• Sea-floor Spreading

• Heat Transfer

• Convection Current

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-1

The boundary formed by the collision of two lithospheric plates.

• Transform Boundary

• Convergent Boundary

• Transform Boundary

• Convection Boundary

A boundary between tectonic plates that are sliding past each other horizontally.

• Shearing

• Transform Boundary

• Convergent Boundary

• Divergent Boundary

The boundary between two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other.

• Transform Boundary

• Convergent Boundary

• Divergent Boundary

• Subduction

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3

Huge pieces of crust that slowly move on the upper ductile part of the mantle

• pangea

• continental drift

• tectonic plate

• plate tectonics

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-3

NGSS.MS-ESS2-2

Undersea mountain range formed where two parts of the Earth's crust are moving apart.

• Convergent Boundary

• Divergent Boundary

• Mid-Ocean Ridge

• Ocean Basin

The process in which a denser plate is pushed downward beneath a less dense plate when plates converge; occurs at continental to oceanic boundaries and oceanic to oceanic boundaries.

• Subduction

• Sea Floor Spreading

• Oceanic Crust

• Geologic Event