L2 vocab Exam 1

Question 1

Topography

Answer 1

Variations in elevation.

Question 1

Bathymetry

Answer 1

Variation in depth.

Question 2

Isostasy

Answer 2

The conditon that exists when the buoyancy force pushing the lithosphere up equals the gravational force pulling the lithosphere down.

Question 3

Lithosphere plate

Answer 3

One of many pieces of the lithosphere (the Earth’s relatively riqid shell) that are sepreated from one another by breaks. (plate boundries)

Question 4

Asthenosphere

Answer 4

The layer of the mantle that lies between 100-500 km and 350 km deep under the moho

Question 5

Seismic waves

Answer 5

waves of energy emitted at the focus of an earthquake

Question 6

Deformation

Answer 6

a change in space, position or orientation a material, by bending, breaking or flowing.

Question 7

Heat

Answer 7

Thermal energy resulting from the movement of molecules.

Question 8

Plate tectonics

Answer 8

States that tthe Earth’s. outer shell, rather than being static and consists of discrete plates that slowly more relative to one another.

Question 9

Continental drift

Answer 9

The hypothesis that continents have moved and are still moving slowly across the Earth’s surface.

Question 10

Pangea

Answer 10

A supercontinent that assembled at the end of the Paleozonic Era.

Question 11

Gondwana Sequence

Answer 11

A supercontinent that consisted of today’s South America, Africa, Antartica, india and Austrillia.

Question 12

Abyssal plain

Answer 12

A broad, relatively flat region of the ocean that lies at least 4.5 km below sea level.

Question 13

Mid-ocean ridge

Answer 13

A 2km high submarine mountain belt that forms along a divergent oceanic plate boundary.

Question 14

Fracture zone

Answer 14

A narrow band of vertical factures in the ocean floor

Question 15

Trench

Question 16

Volcanic arc

Answer 16

A curving chain of active volvanoes form adjacent to a convergent plate boundary.

Question 17

Seamount

Answer 17

An isolated submarine mountain.

Question 18

Heat flow

Answer 18

The rate at which heat rises from the Earth’s interior up to the surface.

Question 19

Seafloor spreading

Answer 19

The gradual widening of an ocean basin as new oceanic crust forms at a mid-ocean ridge axis and then moves away from the axis

Question 20

Subduction

Answer 20

The process by which one oceanic plate bends and sinks down into the atmosphere beneath another plate.

Question 21

Lithosphere

Answer 21

The relatively rigid, nonflowable, outer 100-to 150- km thick layer of the Earthconstituting the crust all to the top part of the mantle.