Briefly explain how each of the following geological features of Earth is formed: seafloors, continents, islands, mountain ranges, rift valleys, and faults.

Sea floor

Sea floor is the surface of the ocean floor. The sea floor is formed through the process known as sea floor spreading.

Continents

Continents are formed through a process known as continental drifting. Continents are continuously moving in relation to one another

Islands

Islands are formed through the collision of continental plates. Continental plates are very buoyant and less dense when they collide they form an uprising.

Mountain ranges

Mountain ranges are high elevation area. This area have numerous or series of mountains connected by high ground.

Rift valleys

Rift valley are lowlands between mountain ranges or hills. Rift valley are majorly formed in a divergent boundary.

Faults

Faults is a discontinuity in rock structure with an appreciable displacement. Fault are formed due to brittle deformation.

Explanation:

Sea floor

Sea floor is the surface of the ocean floor. The sea floor is formed through the process known as sea floor spreading. Sea floor spreading is the divergence movement of the oceanic crust. Ocean crust move away from each other giving rise to movement of magmatic material from the aesthenosphere tot the surface of the ocean floor. The material are introduce through the mid oceanic ridges where crack and fissures are predominant. The semi liquid later become solidified forming a new ocean floor.

Continents

Continents are formed through a process known as continental drifting. Continents are continuously moving in relation to one another. The continents drift from each other, they might collide with each other forming a new continental crust. It was believed that the continent was a super continent called pangea. It later separated due to drifting. Continental are made mostly from granitic content s and this contributes to it less dense nature.

Islands

Islands are formed through the collision of continental plates. Continental plates are very buoyant and less dense when they collide they form an uprising. Island are continental plates surrounded by water. They rise above the sea level because of the collision. The island can also be formed from deposition of erosional materials.

Mountain ranges

Mountain are high elevations. Mountain are also formed from the collision of continental plates. The plates collides leading to an uprising of the continents. One of the highest mountain in the world was formed through this process (Mountain Everest).

Mountain ranges are high elevation area. This area have numerous or series of mountains connected by high ground.

Rift valleys

Rift valley are lowlands between mountain ranges or hills. Rift valley are majorly formed in a divergent boundary. Divergent boundaries are boundary where tectonic plates move away from each other thereby causing an introduction of aesthenospheric material which later solidifies to form a new crust. As the crust extends rift valley, a form of low land region began to form.

Faults

Faults is a discontinuity in rock structure with an appreciable displacement. Fault are formed due to brittle deformation. The rocks fractures and part of the fractured rock move relative to another. Faults are formed in a transform boundary where plates slide past each other. Example is the San Andreas Fault.

seafloor

As tectonic plates gradually move apart from each other, heat from the mantle's convection currents makes the crust to be more plastic and quite less dense. The less-dense material rises, often forming a mountain or elevated area of the seafloor.

Continents

The crust and top portion of our mantle form a rigid shell around the earth that is broken up into huge sections called tectonic plates. The heat from inside the earth causes these plates to slide around on the molten mantle. Tectonic plates continue to gradually slide around the surface, as they have been doing for hundreds of millions of years before. Geologists believe the interaction of the plates resulting in a process called plate tectonics, contributed to the creation of continents.

Islands

Islands are formed when continental plates collide with each other. When they collide they push land up creating an underwater mountain that goes above land. This land, when surrounded by water, is called an island.

Mountain ridges

They are formed by plate tectonics. The uplifting of the ocean floor takes place when convection currents rise in the mantle beneath the oceanic crust and create magma where two tectonic plates meet at a divergent boundary.

Rift Valley

A rift valley forms on a divergent plate boundary, a crustal extension or spreading apart of the surface, which subsequently further deepens by the forces of erosion.

Faults

fault is formed in the Earth's crust as a brittle response to stress. Generally, the movement of the tectonic plates provides the stress, and rocks at the surface break in response to this.