Moving plates, and the clues that they move
Grade 6 Science Worksheet - Building Confidence
Circle the best answer.
In Bo's next cross-section, the arrows point toward each other and the crust crumples upward. Which kind of boundary is it?
- Divergent: plates pull apart
- Transform: plates slide past each other
- Convergent: plates push together
- Plates drifting on liquid lava
Seen from above, Kira's map shows two plates with arrows pointing in opposite directions along their shared edge. Which kind of boundary is it?
- No boundary; the ground is just cracked
- Divergent: plates pull apart
- Transform: plates slide past each other
- Convergent: plates push together
The coasts of South America and Africa fit together like puzzle pieces. What does Jun conclude?
- They are rushing toward each other right now
- It is just a coincidence
- They were once joined and have moved apart
- Sea water carved them to match
Fossils of the same ancient plant, Glossopteris, appear in South America, Africa, India, Antarctica and Australia. What does Milo conclude?
- Its seeds blew across the oceans
- Those lands are still joined today
- Those lands were once joined together
- Each land grew it separately by chance
Noah reads the USGS page on plates. About how fast do plates move?
- A few centimeters a year
- A few kilometers a year
- A few meters a day
- They don't move
USGS compares the speed of plates with something that grows on Pia's own hands. What is it?
- Fingernails growing
- A snail crawling
- Nothing; plates are fixed
- A car on a highway
Ren wonders why nobody notices the continents moving. Which answer is right?
- They move just at night
- They don't move
- They move too fast to see
- They move just a few centimeters a year
An ocean plate bending down under another plate, with the place where they meet unlabeled. Where an ocean plate sinks under another plate, what forms? Tala checks the cross-section.
- A long sliding fault
- A lava ocean opening up
- A tall ridge of brand-new seafloor rock
- A deep trench, with volcanoes nearby
Cross-section, not to scale: two ocean plates moving apart, with magma rising between them under the sea floor. Where two ocean plates pull apart, what forms on the sea floor, according to Zee's book?
- An open gap down to liquid lava
- A trench, where crust sinks
- Tall mountains pushed up by crashing plates
- A ridge, where magma makes new crust
Where two plates grind sideways past each other, what does Esme expect to find?
- A new ridge
- A deep trench
- Nothing, since plates are fixed
- Earthquakes along a long fault