Continental Tectonics and Mountain Chains: Chapter Objectives

After completing this chapter, students should:

1. Understand how continents fracture.
2. Be able to describe three-armed rifts and how they relate to hot spots.
3. Know the geologic features that mark continental rift valleys.
4. Know what a passive margin is and how it differs from an active margin.
5. Understand the forces that can bend or fold solid rock.
6. Know how the shapes of folds are described.
7. Be able to explain how mountains are built when two continents collide.
8. Be able to explain how mountains are built at subduction zones.
9. Understand how a foreland basin forms at a passive margin.
10. Be able to explain how the Andes formed.
11. Understand the relationship between earthquakes and plate boundaries.
12. Be able to explain how the Himalayas formed.
13. Understand the tectonics of the interiors of continents, and understand the forces that create structural basins and structural domes.