Plate Tectonics Webquest Part III

You will use the Slip, Slide Collide tab again today to answer the questions below. Make sure you are on the correct page (see image below). Once clicking on the tab at the top, you will need to click, "See what happens at different plate boundaries". That is the page you worked through yesterday, so scroll all the way to the bottom and click, "Next". You should, then, be on this page shown below. Type in the correct words to fill in the blanks below. Be sure to use the word bank provided. At divergent boundaries, tectonic plates are moving away from each other. One result of huge masses of crust moving apart is seafloor spreading. This occurs when two plates made of oceanic crust pull apart. A crack in the ocean floor appears and then magma oozes up from the mantle to fill in the space between the plates, forming a raised ridge called a mid-ocean ridge. The magma also spreads outward, forming new ocean floor and new oceanic crust. Click on the correct word to fill in the blanks below. When two continental plates diverge, a valley-like rift develops. This rift is a dropped zone where the plates are pulling apart. As the crust widens and thins, valleys form in and around the area, as do volcanoes, which may become increasingly active. Early in the rift formation, streams and rivers flow into the low valleys and long, narrow lakes can be created. Eventually, the widening crust along the divergent boundary may become thin enough that a piece of the continent breaks off, forming a new tectonic plate. Watch the video on the website. The two pictures below are the start end of the video. Using the two images above, explain in your own words, what is happening. Type the correct word in the blanks below. Be sure to use the word bank provided. At transform boundaries, tectonic plates are not moving directly toward or directly away from each other. Instead, two tectonic plates grind past each other in a horizontal direction. This kind of boundary results in a fault. A fault is a crack or fracture in the earth's crust that is associated with this movement.Transform boundaries and the resulting faults produce many earthquakes because edges of tectonic plates are jagged rather than smooth. As the plates grind past each other, the jagged edges strike each other, catch, and stick, "locking" the plates in place for a time. Because the plates are locked together without moving, a lot of stress builds up at the fault line. This stress is released in quick bursts when the plates suddenly slip into new positions. The sudden movement is what we feel as the shaking and trembling of an earthquake.The motion of the plates at a transform boundary has given this type of fault another name, a strike-slip fault. The best studied strike-slip fault is the San Andreas Fault in California. Click to play the Plate Interactions Challenge at the bottom of the website. Record your answer below.