Earth Science-plates and earthquake

• The Earth’s surface, which is known as the Crust, is made up of large slabs of rock known as plates.
• These plates comprise of Continental Plate – which makes up the continents or the land masses and the Oceanic Plate – which makes up the ocean floor.
• The Mid-Ocean Ridge system — the Earth’s underwater mountain range — arises where the plates are moving apart.
• This process, called seafloor spreading, is how new seafloor is formed
• As the plates move apart, the seafloor cracks. Cold seawater seeps down into these cracks, becomes super-heated by magma, and then bursts back out into the ocean, forming hydrothermal vents.
• When the edge of one plate is forced under another — a process called subduction — the crust of the sinking plate is destroyed as it melts again in the hot mantle.
• A type of fault where one side moves down relative to the other. - Normal Fault
• CONTINENT


  One of the seven main land masses on earth
• EARTHQUAKE


  The sudden shaking of earth's crust caused by the release of energy along fault line or volcanic activity
• MOUNTAIN RANGE


  A series or chain of mountains that are close together
• PLATE BOUNDARIES


  The edges where two plates meet. Most geologic activities happen on this area
• CONVERGE


  Tend to move toward one point
• COLLIDE


  To crash into something
• FAULT


  A crack in the Earth's crust where there has been movement
• RING OF FIRE


  A horseshoe-shaped string of volcanoes and earthquake sites around edges on the Pacific Ocean
• CONTINENTAL DRIFT


  The movement of continents resulting from the motion of Tectonic plates
• DIVERGE


  To move or extend different directions from a common point
• CRUST


  The outermost layer of the Earth or other planet
• HOTSPOT


  An intensely hot region deep within the Earth that rises to just underneath the surface
• CONTINENTAL CRUST


  Land thickness vary between 6 to 47 miles depending on the location
• VOLCANO


  An opening in the Earth's crust, through which lava, ash and gas erupt and also the core built by eruptions
• ISLAND


  A body of land surrounded by water
• TECTONIC PLATE


  A massive slab of solid rock made up of Earth's lithosphere
• OCEANIC CRUST


  It is formed under oceans and it is about 4 miles thick in most places
• EARTHQUAKE EPICENTER


  The point on the Earth's surface right above the focus of an earthquake
• When an oceanic crust converges with a

  continental crust, a crack between the crusts underwater, called trench,
• Subduction is the process

  by which a plate dives under a less dense plate.
• It turns into a hot molten

  material which we call magma.
• The column of rising magma is called

  a mantle plume.
• Because subduction continues,

  a group of volcanoes, called volcanic arc,
• tsunamis, a Japanese term for harbor wave.
• The movement of the ground may cause a disturbance in the ocean.

  The water may flip or kick upwards to a few meters high - tsunamis
• Converging continental crusts or

  plates result in a collision zone, which

  could cause shallow earthquakes.
• This series of volcanoes is called volcanic island arc

  since it is surrounded by water.