Questions:
What would our Earth look like if there were no forces acting on the land to
change it?
Glacier
Glaciers are large sheets of ice that form on the sides of mountains.
Glaciers move slowly down the side of the mountain due to the pull of gravity.
As glaciers move, they scrape away pebbles, rocks and boulders. These rocks
move with the glacier and tear away even more land.
Glaciers also push rocks and soil ahead of it as it moves down the mountain.
The movement of glaciers causes the formation of valleys.
The rocks are deposited when the glacier stops moving or melts.
Questions:
What is a glacier?
Questions:
What is a tide?
Questions:
Questions:
What is erosion?
What is deposition?
How are erosion and deposition similar? How are they different?
Layers of Earth
The earth has three layers – crust, mantle and core
The crust is the thinnest layer of earth. It is the outermost layer and it is made up
of solid rocks.
The mantle is subdivided into two layers. The upper mantle is made of solid,
heavy rocks. The plates of earth are found in the layer. The lower mantle is made
is soft, melted rock. This is the magma that comes to the surface when a volcano
erupts.
The core is the hottest layer of earth. It is also subdivided into two layers. The
outer core is made up of liquid (molten) iron. The inner core is made of solid
iron. Even though there is tremendous heat, the inner core remains solid due to
the large amount of pressure from all sides of earth.
Questions:
Which layer contains melted rock that reaches earth during volcanic eruptions?
A volcano is a mountain built up from hardened lava, rocks, and ash that have
erupted out of Earth.
Some eruptions occur slowly, while others occur very quickly.
Magma is the melted rock below Earth’s surface. As it heats and expands, it
pushes in all directions causing the Earth’s surface to move where the crust is the
weakest.
Volcanoes usually form where two plates meet.
When magma reaches the surface, it is called lava.
Volcanic eruptions usually occur due to the built up pressure of the heat and
magma.
Questions:
What is magma?
What is a volcano?
Why do volcanoes occur more frequently at locations where two plates meet?
Continental Drift/Plate/Pangea
Plates are the large pieces of Earth’s crust that float on the mantle. They move
very slowly.
Most earthquakes and volcanoes occur at or near the boundaries between plates.
Continental Drift is the theory of how plates have moved and continue to move
over time. This theory suggests that there was a time when all the continents were
connected together in one large land mass called Pangea.
Fossil evidence supports the continental drift theory – Scientists have found
matching rocks on the coast of South America and the coast of Africa, similar
fossils of animals that could not live in ocean water have been found in both
South America and Africa.
Pangea is the super-continent that existed 225million years ago.
Questions:
What is Pangea?
Questions:
What is an earthquake?
What is a fault?