Earth History Webquest
The goal of this webquest is to allow you to become more familiar with the making of Earth. This will be considered your beginning of your background research for your projects. Please keep this guide in your project research note folder!
Part I. Previewing
Earth
Please watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T20RT0GgOB4
What are some initial questions you have about Earth? (think inquiry/driving questions)
Part II. Earth's Interior
Earth is many thousand kilometers in depth. If you could travel deep into the earth's surface you would find that it contains three main layers; the crust, mantle and core. Go to The Earth's Interior (http://library.thinkquest.org/17457/platetectonics/1.phpv)
Use the Earth Science Books (orange books) on pages 250-251 and the image to the right.. After reading complete the questions below.
The theory of continental drift originated from a German scientist named Alfred Wegener who proposed that there was once a super continent called Pangaea ("all lands"). Wegener proposed that over time the continents drifted apart. Use the following information to answer the questions.
Sea-Floor Spreading
Plate Tectonics
Please watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T20RT0GgOB4
What are some initial questions you have about Earth? (think inquiry/driving questions)
Part II. Earth's Interior
Earth is many thousand kilometers in depth. If you could travel deep into the earth's surface you would find that it contains three main layers; the crust, mantle and core. Go to The Earth's Interior (http://library.thinkquest.org/17457/platetectonics/1.phpv)
- How is Earth's interior like an apple?
- The lithosphere is divided into 2 parts (or crust).
- What are they called?
- What is the thickness of each part?
- What are these parts primarily made of?
Use the Earth Science Books (orange books) on pages 250-251 and the image to the right.. After reading complete the questions below.
- Name the
five layers of the earth in order from the outside to the center of the
earth.
- What are the two main metals that make up the outer and inner core?
- What makes the mantles move?
The theory of continental drift originated from a German scientist named Alfred Wegener who proposed that there was once a super continent called Pangaea ("all lands"). Wegener proposed that over time the continents drifted apart. Use the following information to answer the questions.
- What factors did
Wegener use to support his theory?
- List some
of the arguments of geologists that disproved Wegener's theory.
- Arthur
Holmes came up with his own theory of drifting continents in 1928. What
was his theory?
Sea-Floor Spreading
- What two
Earth changing events can occur when the plates underneath the ocean
spread?
- What is an
ocean ridge?
- Why are
two plates spreading considered to be 'constructive'?
- What is
subduction?
- What is
the Mid-Atlantic Ridge? How many miles does it stretch?
Plate Tectonics
- What is
the theory of plate tectonics?
- What new
information led to the theory of plate tectonics?
- About how
fast to the plates move in relation to each other each year?
- What is it called when two plates meet?
- What are
convergent boundaries?
- What
occurs when a continental and an oceanic plate collide?
- When an
oceanic plate digs into Earth's hot interior, what occurs?
- How were the Andes Mountains in South America formed?
- What are
divergent boundaries?
- Explain
how volcanoes form in the central valley of a divergent boundary?
- How much
does the Atlantic ocean widen per year due to divergent boundaries?
- What are
transform boundaries?
- What could
happen to to a stream bed that is split by a transform boundary?
- Name one
of Earth's most famous transform boundary? Where is it located?
- True or False?
- Do to transforming plates, Los Angeles will break away from California. Explain your answer.