Questions about Plate Tectonics: The Dynamic Earth
- What is the simple, main idea behind continental drift?
- What scientist is most responsible for developing the idea of continental drift?
- What are some of the data that the continental drift model was developed to explain?
- Approximately when was the continental drift model developed?
- What were two important constraints on the further development (and success) of the continental drift model?
- What was an important initiator of research into the nature and processes of Earth¹s oceans?
- What are two ways of mapping the shape of the sea floor?
- What is the current model that helps us understand the large-scale structure and evolution of the solid Earth?
- What are some of the more important tectonic features of the sea floor?
- What is the lithosphere?
- What is the difference between oceanic and continental lithosphere?
- What is a plate, as the term is used in plate tectonics?
- How do we tell where one plate begins and another one ends?
- What are the three primary types of plate boundary?
- Where is the oceanic lithosphere formed?
- Along what kind of plate boundary is the oceanic lithosphere formed?
- How is the oceanic lithosphere formed?
- What is the layered structure of the oceanic lithosphere, and how does it form?
- How do we know about the layered structure of the oceanic lithosphere?
- What are marine magnetic anomalies and how do they form?
- Why are marine magnetic anomalies important to our understanding of how Earth¹s plates move?
- If oceanic lithosphere forms at mid-ocean ridges, does that mean that Earth is expanding?
- If Earth is not expanding, where does the excess oceanic lithosphere go?
- How does continental lithosphere form?
- What makes plates move?
- What is slab pull?
- What is ridge push?
- How does the age of the lithosphere vary with increasing distance away from the ridge?
- How does the depth of the sea floor vary with increasing distance away from the ridge?
- How does the thickness of the upper-mantle lithosphere vary with increasing distance away from the ridge?
- How does the thickness of the full lithosphere vary with increasing distance away from the ridge?
- What is trench pull?
- How would viscous drag in a convecting mantle contribute to plate motion?
- What is the Eotvos force?
- How do we detect plate motion?
- How do hot-spot trails help us resolve plate motion relative to the mesosphere (maybe)?
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Revised November 3, 2008.
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