Exam 2: Plate Tectonics: a Unifying Theory

A transform plate boundary may connect:

How are hot spots used for determining the absolute motions of plates?

At a divergent plate boundary, oceanic crust is ____________________.

Fossil evidence of the links among Gondwana continents was compelling because the species should have:

What is a method by which the present rate of motion between two plates can be measured accurately?

What is the reason that the presence of Glossopteris flora fossils was strong evidence for the existence of Gondwana?

That the northern continents were once joined and located along the equator was shown by the:

Briefly explain why there is so much oil in the Persian Gulf region.

Briefly explain the roles of magma and hydrothermal activity in forming ore deposits along convergent and divergent plate boundaries.

Which are not associated with a mid-oceanic ridge?

Briefly describe what happens at transform plate boundaries and what geological phenomenon is generally associated with it along with an example.

What are four of the many features that plate tectonics theory explains or whose explanations it has influenced?

During the Triassic, a number of rift-related fault basins formed along the eastern margin of North America.

At divergent plate boundaries, plates are moving ____________________. At these locations, new ____________________ forms.

The type of plate boundary that runs through California is called ____________________, and the name of this plate boundary is the ____________________.

Changes in the Earth's magnetic field have occurred throughout geologic time, and these are called magnetic reversals.

The heat that drives thermal convection cells comes primarily from ____________________ and is supplemented by ____________________.

What is the principal reason why Wegener's hypothesis of continental drift was rejected?

Most of the petroleum found in the Persian Gulf area formed at a ____________________ continental margin where the remains of ____________________ were buried and transformed to petroleum.

The group of plant fossils that provides important evidence for the existence of Gondwana is ____________________.