Tectonic Hazards

What Tectonic Hazards covers

Tectonic Hazards is examined in Paper 1, Living with the physical environment. It covers plate tectonics, plate margins and where earthquakes and volcanoes occur, the effects of and responses to a tectonic hazard and living with tectonic risk: monitoring, prediction, protection and planning.

The 4 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Plate tectonics, plate margins and where earthquakes and volcanoes occurPlate tectonics theory, what drives plate movement, continental and oceanic crust, the global pattern of earthquakes and volcanoes and the Ring of Fire, and what happens at constructive, destructive and conservative margins.Open →
• The effects of and responses to a tectonic hazardPrimary and secondary effects of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, immediate and long-term responses, and why death tolls, costs and responses differ between wealthy and poorer areas.Open →
• Contrasting earthquakes: Chile 2010 and Nepal 2015The 2010 Chile and 2015 Nepal earthquakes compared: their plate settings, deaths, damage, tsunami, landslides and avalanches, immediate and long-term responses, and why the wealthier country lost fewer lives but more money.Open →
• Living with tectonic risk: monitoring, prediction, protection and planningWhy people stay near volcanoes and fault lines, from family to fertile soil, geothermal energy and tourism, and how monitoring, prediction, protective building and planning reduce the risk.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Tectonic Hazards further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Constructive margin vs Destructive margin

  Constructive margin: plates moving apart, with magma rising into the gap to form new crust. Destructive margin: an oceanic plate forced down beneath a continental plate and melting.

• Continental crust vs Oceanic crust

  Continental crust: thicker, older and less dense plate material. Oceanic crust: thinner, younger and denser plate material that sinks where the two meet.

• Primary effect vs Secondary effect

  Primary effect: a result caused directly by the event itself. Secondary effect: a result that follows later as a consequence of the first damage.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What does the theory of plate tectonics say about the structure of the Earth's outer layer?

   Model answer

   It says the lithosphere is broken into a number of rigid plates that fit together and move slowly relative to one another.

2. 2

   Which layer of the Earth do the tectonic plates move over?

   Model answer

   The asthenosphere, the hotter and partly molten upper mantle that behaves like a very slow-flowing solid.

3. 3

   What is thought to make the tectonic plates move?

   Model answer

   Convection currents in the mantle, driven by heat from the core, together with slab pull as dense oceanic plate sinks and drags the rest of the plate with it.

4. 4

   How does continental crust differ from oceanic crust?

   Model answer

   Continental crust is thicker, older and less dense, while oceanic crust is thinner, younger and denser, so it is the oceanic crust that sinks where the two meet.

5. 5

   Describe the worldwide pattern of volcanoes.

   Model answer

   Almost all volcanoes lie in narrow lines that follow the edges of the plates, especially around the rim of the Pacific Ocean and along the mid-ocean ridges.

6. 6

   Describe the worldwide pattern of earthquakes.

   Model answer

   They occur in narrow belts that trace the boundaries between the plates, and the deepest and most powerful of them cluster where one plate is sinking beneath another.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Tectonic Hazards revision questions

What does Tectonic Hazards cover in AQA GCSE Geography?

4 subtopics: plate tectonics, plate margins and where earthquakes and volcanoes occur, the effects of and responses to a tectonic hazard, contrasting earthquakes: chile 2010 and nepal 2015 and living with tectonic risk: monitoring, prediction, protection and planning. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Tectonic Hazards organised?

By the AQA 8035 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.