Moving continents, plates, quakes and volcanoes
Answers are for parents and teachers.
1
Draw and label the layers of the Earth as a peach or an egg.
Skin/shell = crust; flesh/white = mantle; the stone/yolk = the cores (outer liquid, inner solid).
2
Explain in three sentences why the continents drift.
The continents are part of plates. The plates ride on hot, slowly flowing rock. Convection currents in the mantle move them a few centimetres a year.
3
Which boundary type makes (a) the East African Rift, (b) the Andes, (c) the San Andreas fault?
(a) divergent, (b) convergent, (c) transform.
4
A plate moves 4 cm a year. How far in 500 years?
4 × 500 = 2000 cm = 20 m.
5
Find the mistake: “The asthenosphere is a layer of liquid magma.”
It is hot, weak rock that is mostly solid and flows very slowly.