This lesson provides students with information about how islands are formed, including a basic knowledge of plate tectonics. Using the islands of Hawaii as an example, students learn about the earth processes that cause the formation of islands over time, including volcanoes and hot spots. Full description.

These pages, from PBS Online, demonstrate how plate tectonics affect the Earth's surface. It includes a brief introduction to the four main boundary types (convergent, divergent, collisional, and transform), a series of pages with information about related people and discoveries, such as pioneer geologists Hess, Wegener, and Holmes, and an interactive activity illustrating plate movement. Full description.

In this activity, students simulate deformational effects on Earth's crust using peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. These common sandwich components are used to model geologic features such as synclines, anticlines, and monoclines, and to demonstrate the effects of stresses and strains. Full description.

Available on this site is a host of images, maps, and animations derived from bathymetric and topographic data. Static images and maps include those of estimated seafloor topography from satellite altimetry, total sediment thickness of the ocean floor, Great Lakes bathymetry, world crustal ages, and coastal relief. Of particular note is an interactive surface map of the Earth, which is composed of ... Full description.

This article discusses the idea of 'hot spot' volcanoes, those not associated with plate tectonic boundaries, but rather with relatively stationary sources of heat energy (thermal plumes) in the mantle. Topics include the development of the theory by Canadian geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson; the mechanics of volcanism over a hot spot as seen in the Hawaiian Islands; ancient Hawaiian observations of the ... Full description.

The orientation and sense of slip of faults in an area is largely dependent upon the tectonic forces present in that area. In this exercise learners are shown several idealized fault-block models and asked to interpret the sense of movement along certain fault planes within a given tectonic environment. Clicking on the images provides the correct answers. Full description.

This site shows how to make paper models representing simple faults and illustrating some of the landforms associated with faulting of the Earth's crust. Full description.

In this activity, students will learn how rock layers are folded and faulted and how to represent these structures in maps and cross sections. They will use playdough to represent layers of rock and make cuts in varying orientations to represent faults and other structures. Full description.

This virtual field trip shows students the geologic features of Enchanted Rock, a dome of Precambrian granite located in central Texas. They can see small faults, fault gouge, close-up photos showing the texture of the granite, and a variety of features produced by weathering. Full description.

This article describes the occurrence of listric normal faults (those which gradually flatten out with depth) in the continental shelf offshore Oregon and Washington, as seen in seismic reflection profiles. There is also a discussion of the faulting mechanics, the timing of uplift on the continental shelf, and the separation of compressional and extensional tectonic regimes on the lower and upper ... Full description.