Understanding Landforms and Tectonics

What are the four main types of landforms?

• Mountains

• Hills

• Plateaus

• Plains

How much of the Earth’s land area is covered by plains?

What type of landform makes up roughly 50% of Canada’s land mass? How is this landform typically formed?

• The Canadian Shield makes up roughly 50% on Canada’s land mass

• Formed through processes of plate tectonics, erosion, and glaciation

Why are valleys important regions for civilizations around the world?

Explain the difference in the two ways valleys are shaped.

• Take the form of a “U” or “V” in their shape

• Rivers and streams make the sharpest primary cuts (V)

• Glaciers melting create a U-shaped valley

Describe the theory of continental drift. What was the main problem with the scientists' initial hypothesis related to this theory?

• Continental Drift-theory that the continental landmasses were “drifting” across the Earth, sometimes plowing through oceans and into each other

• Originally thought that the rotation of the Earth caused the continents to shift towards and apart from each other

• The continents are moving…but not in this way!

• This theory is replaced by the understanding of plate tectonics

Explain the theory of plate tectonics.

• Plate tectonics-the theory that Earth’s surface is made up of rigid plates that are pushed by forces inside the planet

• The plates are always moving and interacting with one another

What are the three plate boundary movements?

• Divergent boundary- a place where two plates of lithosphere move away from each other

• Transform boundary-a place where side-by-side plates grind past each other

• Convergent boundary- a place where two plates of lithosphere come together

What is the most dangerous component of a volcanic eruption?

What is the Ring of Fire? What occurs within the Ring of Fire?