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Plate TectonicsPlate Tectonics

Contents

How old is the Earth?

What is the Earth made from?

What is plate tectonics?

What happens at the different types of plate boundary?

Summary activities

The key concepts covered are:Space and Physical and human processes.

How old is the Earth?How old is the Earth?

Be able to identify important points on the Earth’s timeline.

Have discovered how old the Earth is.

By the end of this section, you will:

History of the Earth

More than ever

We know more about the Earth than we ever have before.

Scientific advances have significantly changed our knowledge of the structure of the Earth.

We can now say:

what the structure of the Earth is

how the Earth has changed over time

what might happen to the Earth in the future.

Do we know everything about the Earth’s structure and its history?

What is the Earth made from?

Be able to identify what the Earth is made of.

Understand how these layers fit together.

Learn more details about the Earth’s structure.

Looking into the Earth

Across the Earth

Structurally sound?

What is plate tectonics?What is plate tectonics?

Know what is meant by the term plate tectonics.

Know what continental drift is and how it affects Earth.

Be able to identify and name the major plates.

Continental drift

Some continents fit together almost perfectly, e.g. South America and Africa.

Similar fossils can be found on different continents. This shows these regions were once very close or joined together.

Evidence for continental drift

It was not until the 1960s that the theory of continental drift became accepted by the scientific community.

Almost identical patterns of rock layers on different continents is evidence that the rocks were once close together or joined.

Why are the continents moving?

The Earth's surface is made up of a number of large plates that are in constant, slow motion.

The ocean floors are continually moving, spreading from the centre and sinking at the edges.

The edges of these plates – plate boundaries – are where earthquakes and volcanoes occur.

Convection currents in the mantle move the plates. The plates ‘float’ on the mantle and move around the Earth’s surface.

In the 1960s geologists used surveys of the ocean floor to explain continental drift with the theory of plate tectonics.

What is plate tectonics?

How do the plates actually move?

Why do the plates move?

Plate names

What happens at the different types of plate boundary?

Know that there are different types of plate boundary.

Understand what happens at the different plate boundaries.

Be able to state on what type of boundary earthquakes and volcanoes are likely to happen.

Know the boundaries

The tectonic plates are moving in different directions.

Plates that are moving in opposite directions form a constructive boundary.

Plates that move towards each other form either a destructive boundary or a collision boundary.

Plates sliding by each other form a conservative boundary.

Can you name one example of each of the different boundary types?

The movements have different effects on the landscape of the Earth.

Have you got the edge?

Constructive plate boundary

Constructive information

Destructive plate boundary

Destructive order

Collision plate boundary

Destructive or collision?

Conservative plate boundary

Conservative order

Plate definitions

Summary activitiesSummary activities

Know the key points of plate tectonics.

Understand important words and phrases relating to plate tectonics.

Summary quiz

Glossary

Anagrams

© Boardworks Ltd 2008 1 of 31 Teacher’s notes included in the Notes Page.Flash activity. These...

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