Name:___________________________ Hour: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Date:____________________
Plate Tectonics
Study Guide
1. What is geology?
2. What’s the difference between constructive and destructive forces?
3. As you go towards the center of the earth what three forces increase?
4. List the 4 layers of the earth and what their compositions/phase are.
A.
B.
C.
D.
5. How do we have information about the interior of the earth?
6. In which era did dinosaurs exist? How long ago was that?
7. In which era do humans exist?
8. What is the largest era ever? How long was it?
9. How old is the earth?
10. What is the theory of continental drift? Who developed this theory?
11. What evidence supports the theory of continental drift? List and describe at least three
points of evidence.
12. What are the plates of the earth made up of? What causes them to move?
13. What is weathering? What is an example of weathering?
14. What is erosion? What is an example of erosion?
15. How does deposition clean up the remnants of weathering and erosion?
16. What’s the difference between mechanical and chemical weathering?
17. What causes mudflows, slumps, creeps, and landslides?
18. Describe and draw a picture that depicts the law of superposition.
19. What is the difference between an extrusion and an intrusion? Are they older or younger
then the rock they inhabit?
20. What is an unconformity?
21. What type of rock is formed during deposition (sedimentation)?
22. What type of rock is formed when there is an extrusion or an intrusion?
23. Draw and describe what occurs along a transform plate boundary.
24. Draw and describe what occurs along a convergent plate boundary. This will differ
depending upon whether or not this interaction occurs between oceanic or continental plates.
Make sure and describe all options.
25. Draw and describe what occurs along a divergent plate boundary. This will differ depending
upon if this plate interaction takes places across a continent or across the ocean. Make sure and
describe both situations below.
26. Create a short time-line below indicating the various eras and periods of time we talked
about in class. Include important information about each geological time period when possible.
27. Describe the 6 ways fossils can form?
28. How does soil form?