Also called the geosphere.middle layer of the Earth, made of mostly solid rock.thin layer of the Earth that sits beneath ocean basins.supercontinent of all the Earth's landmass that existed about 250 million years ago.large region that is higher than the surrounding area and relatively flat.break in the Earth's crust created by it spreading or splitting apart.lake formed as a result of plate tectonics separating the Earth's crust and water collecting in the depression.depression in the ground caused by the Earth's crust spreading apart.depression in the earth caused by a river eroding the surrounding soil.rift in underwater mountain range where new oceanic crust is formed.base level for measuring elevations.
These resources can be used to teach middle schoolers more about the natural world, its distinctive features, and landscapes.The Earth’s surface may seem motionless most of the time, but it’s actually always moving, ever so slowly, at a scale that is difficult for humans to perceive. In addition, over the past 25 million years, layers of soft The Dead Sea is a rift lake in the Jordan Rift Valley. The rift left over from this violent event has a flat floor and steep sides and the Great Rift Valley is littered with volcanoes all around it. What was once thought to be one giant 6,000-mile long rift is now known to be several smaller rifts joined together. This includes the discovery of the 3.2-million-year-old fossilized remains of a female nicknamed Lucy. These two branches together have been termed the East African Rift (EAR), while parts of the Eastern branch have been variously termed the Kenya Rift or the Gregory Rift (after the geologist who first mapped it in the early 1900's). Also called the Somali Peninsula.small flow of water flowing naturally from an underground water source heated by hot or molten rock.related to hot water, especially water heated by the Earth's internal temperature.outer, solid portion of the Earth. Craton. While the name continues in some usages, it is rarely used in geology as it is considered an imprecise merging of separate though related rift and fault systems. Also called lithospheric plate.boundary between two tectonic plates, where the plates are moving horizontally or vertically in opposite directions, not against or away from each other. Lake Tanganyika. Although the Dead Sea is not the world's deepest lake, the deep Jordan Rift makes it the lowest land The most famous rift lakes in the world may be the series of narrow, deep rift valleys in the East African Rift known simply as the Rift Valley lakes. Also called the Rift Valley Lakes and the East African Lakes.chemical compound often found as mineral salt in soils and bodies of water. The deepest parts of Lake Baikal are 1,642 meters (5,387 feet), and are getting deeper every year. At the Afar Triple Junction, the Arabian plate, Nubian plate and Somali plate are all tearing away from each other.Two arms of the Afar Triple Junction continue to widen in the process of seafloor spreading—the arm extending into the Red Sea and the arm extending into the Gulf of Aden. The plates are moving very slowly but surely at roughly five to ten centimeters (two to four inches) per year.In the so-called East African Rift System (EARS) region there are three large diverging plates: the Arabian Plate and Africa’s Somalian and Nubian protoplates. The movements of these plates can account for noticeable geologic events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and more subtle yet sublime events, like the building of mountains. More than a billion years ago, for instance, the North American plate began a rifting process. A graben is a fallen portion of land with faults on 2 or more sides. There are two main types of weathering: chemical and physical. There are also volcanoes in Lake Turkana. Two major rift valleys occur on the land surface, or in the continental crust: the Baikal Rift Valley in Siberia and the African Rift. All rights reserved.A rift valley is a lowland region that forms where Earth’s tectonic plates move apart, or rift.Earth Science, Geology, Geography, Physical Geographysystem of lakes in and around the Great Rift Valley: Lake Albert, Lake Edward, Lake Kivu, Lake Malawi, Lake Tanganyika, Lake Turkana, and Lake Victoria. Lake Tanganyika is four times deeper than which North American geographic location? All rights reserved. These forces caused huge chunks of the crust to sink between parallel fault lines and force up molten rock in volcanic eruptions. Some Interesting Facts - Random interesting facts from the World An example of chemical weathering is acid rain.