Chapter 1 Lesson 1 Earths Landforms How Landforms

Chapter 1 - Lesson 1 Earth’s Landforms How Landforms Came to Be

Turn to textbook page 14 • Voices: Poetry and Art from Around the World Berlin, Germany Tokyo, Japan Juarez, Mexico

How Landforms Came to Be Textbook page 20 • Earth is mostly covered in water • There are landforms on the remaining parts of the Earth • Landforms are natural features on the Earth’s surface • Examples: mountains, hills, plains

How Landforms Came to Be • Earth’s landforms and continents were formed through theory of plate tectonics • Plate tectonics says that the Earth is made up of several large, slow moving slabs or plates • The continents and ocean floors form the tops of the plates which move and carry the continents and ocean floors with them

How Landforms Came to Be • 13 Major Tectonic Plates of the World

How Landforms Came to Be • Scientists believe that long ago the Earth’s landmasses made up one giant super continent called Pangaea

How Landforms Came to Be

How Landforms Came to Be • Scientists believe that forces inside the Earth caused Pangaea to break apart • Continental drift is a theory that explained how continents shift position on Earth's surface. • Set forth in 1912 by Alfred Wegener, a geophysicist and meteorologist, continental drift also explained why look-alike animal and plant fossils, and similar rock formations, are found on different continents.

How Landforms Came to Be Alfred Wegener

How Landforms Came to Be

• Who came up with theory of Continental Drift? What brought him to the conclusion of a super continent?

How Landforms Came to Be • Earth is made up of layers similar to an apple • Earth has a crust, mantle, core just as an apple has skin, meat, and a core • Earth’s crust is 10 to 25 miles thick • Earth’s mantle lies just below the crust and is 1, 800 miles thick • The mantle is made of hot, rocklike materials • Earth’s center or core is very hot, temperatures can be 5, 000 degrees Fahrenheit • The core is broken into two parts the inner core and the outer core • The inner core is solid and the outer core is molten or melted rock

How Landforms Came to Be • The liquid outer core surrounds the inner core and is believed to be composed of iron mixed with nickel and trace amounts of lighter elements • Recent studies suggests that the innermost part of the core is enriched in gold and platinum while also containing nickel and primarily iron • Extreme heat from the core causes the mantle to create pressure on the crust, forcing the crust in some places to rise • As the crust rises it pushes large blocks or rock upwards and forms mountains or plateaus • A portion of the Rocky Mountains formed this way

How Landforms Came to Be • Mg – Magnesium, Fe – Iron, Al – Aluminum, Si – Silicate, O – Oxygen, Ni – Nickel, Au – Gold, Pt - Platinum

How Landforms Came to Be

How Landforms Came to Be • Mountains can also be formed when one plate over another plate • The Earth’s plates are constantly moving even today • The movement of plates sometimes shakes the Earth’s surface causing an earthquake • Earthquakes are common around faults • Fault – is a break in the Earth’s crust where movement occurs between the plates

How Landforms Came to Be • The San Andreas Fault in California is one of the most well known faults in the world • Most faults are not visible, but the San Andreas Fault is visible

How Landforms Came to Be • The 1906 Earthquake in San Francisco, California was caused by the movement of the plates that meet at the San Andreas Fault • The San Andreas Fault shifted 21 ft

• What are the 4 layers of the Earth called and what do they consist of?

Terms to Know • Plate Tectonics • Continental Drift • Fault • How do moving tectonic plates create landforms such as mountains?