CLASS COPY – Please write on your own paper. Return this sheet at the end of the class period.
READING GUIDE Activity 4 Digging Deeper: “Building Features on Earth’s Surface” [G 100 – G 103]
Directions: Read the selection and answer the following questions in your notebook. Write your answers in complete
sentences that restate the question. You may wish to refer back to your map from Activity 0 where you color coded
ridges, trenches and mountains from the ocean maps and plotted earthquake and volcano locations.
PLATE TECTONICS
1. Why is the Greek word “tekton” a good term for what happens in the process of plate tectonics?
2. List five structures or events that occur near plate boundaries.
OCEAN TRENCHES at Plate Boundaries
3. How does subduction create ocean trenches?
VOLCANOES at Plate Boundaries
4. What role does density have in the formation of volcanic arcs at subduction zones?
5. What do geologists now believe causes the melting as an ocean plate is subducted?
6. What causes the “Ring of Fire” to be fiery?
HOT SPOTS at Plate Boundaries
7. Use a Venn diagram to compare the formation and location of volcanoes at subduction zones with the formation
and location of hot spot volcanoes.
8. Give three examples of hot spots.
9. Describe what happens to a continent when a hot spot is located under it?
MOUNTAINS at Plate Boundaries
10. Compare and contrast the formation of the Andes Mountains with the formation of the Himalayan Mountains
by completing the chart below you may refer back to the map of plate movements on page G 66 in Activity 1
and information on plate boundaries on page G 80 in Activity 2 for help.
Names of plates involved
Andes Mountains
Nazca and South American
Himalayan Mountains
Indian-Australian and Eurasian
Type of boundary
Types of plates involved
Types of mountains formed
volcanic / folded non-volcanic
volcanic / folded non-volcanic
(circle one)
11. Pikes Peak is not a volcano. It is a batholith that was uncovered by erosion of the surrounding rock. Explain
what a batholith is.
GROWTH OF CONTINENTS at Subduction Zones.
12. Describe three ways that continents are made larger by plate movements.
EARTHQUAKES and Plate Tectonics
13. Why are earthquakes along convergent boundaries more of a problem for humans than earthquakes along midocean ridges?
WRAPPING IT UP: Write a paragraph that describes how plate tectonics affects the occurrence/formation of
volcanoes, earthquakes, mountains, ocean trenches, and rift valleys around the Earth.