continental drift, theory that all continents were once connected in a single, large landmass that broke apart and drifted slowly to their current positions, Plate tectonics, a geological theory, well supported by evidence, that Earth's crust and upper mantle are broken into plates that float and move around on the mantle, tectonic plates, a piece of the lithosphere that may consist of continents, parts of continents, and parts of the sea floor, Pangea, Single land mass formed by joining of all the continents about 250 million years ago, Lithosphere, the outermost rigid layer of the Earth, made up of two parts: the crust and the rigid upper part of the mantle, Subduction, process in which the lithosphere plunges back into the interior of the earth, Divergent plate boundary, where two plates move apart, Convergent plate boundary, where two plates collide, aesthenosphere, a zone of the Earth's mantle that lies beneath the lithosphere and is involved in plate tectonic movement, transform boundary, where two plates move past each other horizontally, sea-floor spreading, the process in which two undersea tectonic plates move apart and new sea is formed as molten rock within Earth rises through cracks along the mid-ocean ridge.

Plate Tectonics

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