Plate Motion and Boundaries

ESS1.C: The History of Planet Earth: Tectonic processes continually generate new ocean sea floor at ridges and destroy old sea floor at trenches. (HS.ESS1.C GBE) (secondary to MS-ESS2-3) ESS2.B: Plate Tectonics and Large-Scale System Interactions: Maps of ancient land and water patterns, based on investigations of rocks and fossils, make clear how Earth’s plates have moved great distances, collided, and spread apart. (MS-ESS2-3)

NGSS Practices Practice 2: Developing and Using Models, Practice 4: Analyzing and Interpreting Data, Practice 6: Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions, Practice 7: Engaging in Argument from Evidence, Practice 8: Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

Students analyze and interpret evidence about the relationships between geologic activity and landforms (patterns) at the plate boundary between the South American Plate and the African Plate. They do this in order to explain how the Mesosaurus fossils got so far apart. Students also create visual models showing how the plates move and the effect of this movement on rock from the mantle (cause and effect) at this divergent plate boundary.