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How do convection currents in the earth work?

How do convection currents in the earth work?

Convection currents are part of what drives global circulation of the Earth’s atmosphere. Convection currents in the air and sea lead to weather. Magma in the Earth’s mantle moves in convection currents. The hot core heats the material above it, causing it to rise toward the crust, where it cools.

How might convection currents cause plate movement quizlet?

Theory that the Earth’s crust is divided into tectonic plates which move around due to convection currents in the mantle. The movement caused within a fluid by hotter and therefore less dense material to rise, and colder, denser material to sink under the influence of gravity. Plates pull apart and magma rises up.

How do plate tectonics move?

Plate tectonics move because they are carried along by convection currents in the upper mantle of the planet (the mantle is a slowly flowing layer of rock just below Earth’s crust). Hot rock just below the surface rises and when it cools and gets heavy, it sinks again.

Why can the movement caused by convection currents cause destruction?

Convection currents within the Earth’s mantle are caused by hot material rising upwards, cooling, then dropping back toward the core. If the interior of the Earth were to cool enough for convection currents to stop, then the motion of the plates would cease, and the Earth would become geologically dead.

What causes plate movement quizlet?

convection currents are a process in which the materials inside the mantle heat up and rise to the surface whilst the cooler liquid sinks; as it sinks it then heats up and rises again. This continuous cycle is established: hot liquid rising, cold liquid descending. These currents cause the tectonic plates to move.

How might convection currents cause plate movement?

Convection currents are similar movements to movements a beaker of boiling water. Convection currents cause the plates to move. It causes the magma to rise then sink back into the ground and move the plates. When the magma sinks into the ground and moves the plates.

How does convection contribute to plate motion?

Plates at the surface of the Earth move due to intense heat from the core of the planet. The heat makes the molten rock to move in convection cells pattern, consequently causing the plates to move. The interior part of the Earth consists of both metal and rock.

What causes plate convection?

Heat rising and falling inside the mantle creates convection currents generated by radioactive decay in the core. The convection currents move the plates. Where convection currents diverge near the Earth’s crust, plates move apart.

How do convection currents affect plate tectonics?

How Convection Currents Affect Plate Movement. ConvectionCurrents affect the way tectonic plates move. It happens when semi melted rock in the mantle heats up and rises up to the crust and spreads apart moving the plates above it. The heated magma then cools and moves back down towards the core where the cores radiation will reheat and the process will start all over again.