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Vocabulary
due to convection currents in the mantle
 * Plates**:a section of the lithosphere that slowly moves carrying pieces of the crust
 * Scientific Theory**:a well tested theory
 * Plate Tectonics**:the geological theory that states that pieces of the Earth's lithoshere are in constant movement
 * Faults**:breaks in the Earth's crust where rocks have slipped passed each other
 * Transform Boundary**:a place where two plates slipped pass each other, in opposite directions
 * Divergent Boundary**:a place where two plates diverge, or move apart
 * Rift Valley**:a deep valley that forms along a divergent boundary
 * Convergent Boundary**:a place where two plates collide,come together,or converge

Theory of Plate Motion

 * Wilson combined sea-floor speading and continental drift into a single theory
 * his theory states that the Earth's lithosphere is broken into pieces called plates
 * Theory includes that the plates are driven by convection currents in the mantle

Plate boundaries

 * plates meet at a boundary
 * there are three different boundaries
 * transform,divergent,convergent

The Continents' Slow Dance
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 * plates move slowly
 * 2.5 cm a year, about same rate as fingernails grow
 * about 260 million years ago, continents were combined into pangaea
 * they broke at 225 million years ago