Interactive multimedia exercise showing how earthquakes are created. Understand what causes seismic waves and predict seismic activity, and pinpoint the epicenter of an earthquake. Tectonic plates are the outer layer of the Earth, the lithosphere, which is cool enough to behave as a more or less rigid shell. Occasionally the hot asthenosphere of the Earth finds a weak place in the lithosphere to rise buoyantly as a plume, or hotspot. Use this interactive to map these tectonic plates.
Glaciers begin to form when snow remains in the same area year-round and transforms into ice.
New layers of snow bury and compress the previous layers. The compression forces the icy snow to re-crystallize, forming grains similar in size and shape to cane sugar. Gradually the grains grow larger and the air pockets between the grains get smaller and more packed, increasing its overall density. Learn more through this interactive. Hydrologic Cycle is water moving in an endlessly circulation of evaporation, forming clouds, and returning to earth as precipitation.