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EVSC 1010
Test 1
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Matter | anything that has both mass and volume; what atoms and molecules are made of |
| Atom | the smallest particle that exhibits the unique chemical characteristics of an element |
| Proton | subatomic particle that has significant mass and contributes a single positive electrical chage to an atom |
| Neutron | subatomic particle that has significant mass but no electrical charge |
| Electron | extremely light subatomic particles having a mass that is 1/1840 of a proton and has a negative electrical charge |
| Ion | an atom or molecule that has lost or gained one or more electrons, giving it a positive or negative electrical charge |
| Cation | a positively charged ion, which has fewer electrons than protons |
| Anion | a negatively charged ion, which has more electrons than protons |
| Isotope | variants of elements containing different numbers of neutrons |
| Radioactive Decay | the process whereby the nuclei of unstable isotopes tend to lose subatomic particles forming an element with a lower atomic mass |
| Compound | occurs when atoms and ions unite; a molecule that contains at least two different elements |
| Ionic Bond | when ions of opposite charges are attracted to one another |
| Covalent Bond | a bond in which atoms share electrons |
| Molecule | formed when two or atoms join together chemically |
| Chemical reaction | the pathway by which two substances bond together |
| Reactants | the substances reacting in a chemical reaction |
| Products | the substances being formed in a chemical reaction |
| Balancing chemical equation | a chemical equation is balanced when the number of atoms on the left side is balanced with the atoms on the right side of the equation |
| Energy | one of the most fundamental and universal concepts in physical science; an attribute of matter that can manifest itself in various ways; can be observed and measured only indirectly through its effects on matter that acquires, loses or possesses it |
| Kinetic Energy | energy associated with the motion of an object |
| Potential Energy | energy that is stored within an object or system; exists when there is a force that tends to pull an object back towards some original position when the object is displaced |
| Thermal energy | the total kinetic energy of an object due to the random motion of its atoms and molecules |
| Temperature | a number that is related to the average kinetic energy of the molecules of a substance (says nothing about potential energy and is not influenced by the mass of the object) |
| Heat | the transfer of thermal energy caused by the temperature difference |
| First law of thermodynamics | the energy of a closed system is conserved |
| Work | the transfer of energy by any process other than heat |
| Heat Transfer | when a warmer body is brought into contact with a cooler body, thermal energy flows from the warmer one to the cooler until their two temperatures are identical |
| Conduction | thermal energy flow that occurs when two objects at different temperatures are in contact with each other; heat transfer through a substance by the collision of molecules |
| Convection | heat transfer by mass motion (circulation) of a fluid; most efficient way to transfer heat; occurs when warmer areas of liquid or gas rise to cooler areas in the liquid or gas |
| Radiation | heat transfer by means of emission or absorption of electromagnetic radiation; energy transport consisting of electromagnetic waves traveling at the speed of light, no mass is exchanged and no medium is required |
| Buoyancy | the tendency of an object to float in a liquid; controlled by differences in density between the object and the liquid |
| Specific heat | the heat (transfer of thermal energy) needed to raise the temperature of one gram of a substance one degree Celsius |
| Latent heat | the heat required for a substance to change state with no accompanying change in temperature |
| Wave | a periodic disturbance in space and time in which energy is transferred from place to place without the transfer of matter |
| Mechanical Waves | waves that move through matter and require an elastic material medium through which to pass |
| Electromagnetic Waves | waves that do not require a material medium |
| Energy density | the amount of energy stored in a given system or region of space per unit volume, or per unit mass |
| Diffusion | a consequence of the constant thermal motion of atoms, molecules and particles and results in material moving from areas of high to low concentration |
| Core | composed mainly of nickel and iron; outer layer is a molten sea of liquid metal, the center is compressed into solid |
| Mantle | surrounds the core and lies beneath the crust; outermost layer is cool, layer below is weak, soft and plastic flows slowly, below that is solid |
| Crust | layer of the earth that is composed almost entirely of solid rock |
| Lithosphere | the crust and the uppermost portion of the mantle |
| Asthenosphere | the weak, plastic portion of the upper mantle beneath the lithosphere |
| Mineral | naturally occurring inorganic solid with a definite chemical composition and a crystalline structure |
| Characteristics of Minerals | solid, definite chemical composition, inorganic (not produced exclusively by living organisms or biological processes), crystalline structure (orderly, internal, repeating arrangement of atoms) |
| Crystal | any substance whose atoms are arranged in a regular, periodically repeated pattern |
| Crystalline habit | the characteristic shape of a mineral, and the manner in which aggregates of crystals grow |
| Cleavage | the tendency of some minerals to break along flat surfaces |
| Fracture | manner in which a mineral breaks other than long planes of cleavage |
| Hardness | resistance of a mineral to scratching (controlled by the bond strength between the atoms) |
| Specific gravity | weight of a substance relative to that of an equal volume of water |
| Streak | color of the fine powder of a mineral (by rubbing the mineral across a piece of unglazed porcelain) |
| Luster | manner in which a mineral reflects light |
| Rock | a consolidated mixture of one or more minerals |
| Igneous rocks | rocks that form through the solidification of molten rock material |
| Magma | molten or partially molten rock material and dissolved gases beneath Earth’s surface |
| Lava | molten or partially molten rock material and dissolved gases that has erupted at Earth’s surface |
| Intrusive Igneous Rocks | forms when magma solidifies within the crust; made of big crystals, which indicates slow cooling |
| Extrusive Igneous Rocks | forms when magma erupts and solidifies on the Earth’s surface; made of small, microscopic, or even no crystals, which indicates rapid cooling |
| Sedimentary Rocks | rocks that form from sediments, which have been eroded from other rocks |
| Clastic Sedimentary Rocks | composed of fragments of weathered rocks called clasts, which have been transported, deposited and lithified (85% of all sedimentary rocks) |
| Organic Sedimentary Rocks | consist of the lithified remains of plants or animals |
| Chemical sedimentary rocks | form by direct precipitation of minerals from solution |
| Bioclastic sedimentary rocks | composed of broken shell fragments or similar remains of living organisms |
| Clasts | fragments of weathered rocks |
| Lithification | the process of sediment becoming a rock, can take tens to hundreds of thousands of years |
| Cement | material that holds sedimentary particles together |
| Sedimentary structures | features that developed during or shortly after the deposition of the sediments; help to understand how the sediment was transported and deposited |
| Bedding/stratification | a sedimentary structure where there is layering that develops as sediment is deposited (ex. Grand Canyon) |
| Metamorphic rocks | rocks which form when heat, pressure or hot water alter any preexisting rock |
| Metamorphic grade | the intensity of metamorphism that formed the rock |
| Contact metamorphism | occurs when hot magma intrudes cooler rock of any type – sedimentary, metamorphic or igneous |
| Burial metamorphism | results from the burial of rocks in a sedimentary basin (river basin) |
| Regional dynathermal metamorphism | occurs where major crustal movements build mountains and deform rocks |
| Hydrothermal metamorphism | occurs when hot water and ions dissolved in hot water react with a rock to change its chemical composition and minerals |
| Rock cycle | any rock can be transformed to any other major class of rock, because rocks are classified by the process in which they are formed |
| Weathering | the decomposition and disintegration of rocks and minerals at Earth’s surface |
| Erosion | the removal of weathered rocks and minerals by moving water, wind, ice or gravity (Transport and Deposition) |
| Mechanical (physical) weathering | reduces solid rock to smaller fragments but does not alter the chemical composition of the rocks and minerals |
| Frost wedging | dislodges rocks from cliffs and creates talus slopes; occurs when water gets in crevices, freezes and then melts |
| Talus slopes | slopes created on mountains after frost wedging occurs |
| Chemical weathering | occurs when air and water chemically react with rock to alter its composition and mineral content |
| Dissolution | the process of going into solution |
| Hydrolysis | water reacts with a mineral to form a new mineral with the water as part of the crystal structure |
| Regolith | the loose, unconsolidated, weathered material that overlies bedrock |
| Soil | upper layers of the regolith that support plant growth |
| Soil formation process | process by which rocks are broken down into progressively smaller particles and mixed with decaying organic material |
| Soil texture | shows the percentage of sand, silt and clay in the sample Influence of soil texture on infiltration and leaching |
| Mass wasting | downslope movement of Earth material, primarily under the influence of gravity |
| Landslide | general term for mass wasting and for the landforms created by mass wasting |
| Flow Landslide | individual particles move downslope independently of one another, not as a consolidated mass |
| Creep/Debris flow | a flow landslide where the land surface moves more rapidly than deeper layers, so objects embedded in rock or soil tilt downhill |
| Slide | material moves as discrete blocks |
| Slump/Rockslide | a slide landslide where blocks of soil or rock remain intact as they move down slope, trees tilt back into the hillside |
| Fall landslide | materials fall freely in the air |
| Rivers and streams | water flowing in a channel |
| Channel | the trough or groove through which a stream flows |
| Watershed/drainage basin | the land area that contributes water to a river system |
| Discharge/stream flow | velocity x cross sectional area, the amount of water flowing down a stream |
| Gradient | the steepness of the stream |
| Competence | a measure of the largest particle it can carry |
| Capacity | the total amount of sediment a stream can carry past a point in a given amount of time |
| Dissolved load | ions dissolved in water |
| Suspended load | smaller (clay and silt) particles suspended in the water |
| Bed load | boulders and cobbles moved along the streambed |
| Upgraded stream | has many temporary base levels |
| Graded stream | the result of an ungraded stream after time smoothes out irregularities |
| Meanders | a bend in a stream or river formed when the moving water in a stream alternately erodes sediments from the outside of a bend and depositing them on the inside. |
| Cut bank | forms as a stream erodes the outsides of a river bend |
| Point bar | forms as a stream deposits sand and gravel on the inside bends of a river |
| Oxbow lake | – forms over time as a stream erodes through the neck of a meander |
| Braided stream | occurs when a stream carries more sediment than it can carry |
| Alluvial fan | occurs when a steep mountain stream flows onto a flat plain and it deposits most of its sediments in a fan-shaped mound as its velocity decreases abruptly |
| Delta | the nearly flat landform that forms as a stream slows abruptly when it enters the still water of a lake or ocean |
| Porosity | indicates the amount of water that rock and soil can hold |
| Permeability | the ability of rock or soil to transmit water |
| Water table | the top of the zone of saturation |
| Zone of saturation | completely wet (saturated) soil and bedrock above the barrier (impermeable rock) |
| Perched water table | the top of the locally saturated zone that occurs when a layer of impermeable rock or clay lies above the main water table |
| Spring | occurs where the water table intersects the land surface and water flows or seeps onto the surface |
| Artesian acquifier | forms where a tilted layer of permeable rock lies sandwiched between layers of impermeable rock; water rises in an artesian well without being pumped |
| Karst topography | include sinkholes and caverns; streams commonly disappear into sinkholes and flow through the caverns to emerge elsewhere |
| Geyser | A natural hot spring that regularly ejects a spray of steam and boiling water into the air. |
| Glacier | a massive, long-lasting, moving mass of compacted snow and ice |
| Firn | rounded ice grains that occur if snow survives through one summer; converts to glacial ice if it is buried deep in the snowpack |
| Basal Slip | glacial movement that occurs when the entire glacier slides over the bedrock |
| Plastic flow | glacial movement that occurs when the ice flows as a viscous fluid |
| Zone of accumulation | the region where more snow falls during the winter than melts during the summer |
| Zone of ablation | the lower part of the glacier, where more snow melts during the summer than accumulates during the winter |
| Cirque | a steep, amphitheater-shaped hollow occurring at the upper end of a mountain valley forming the head of a glacier; formed by the erosive activity of glaciers |
| Tarn | form when a glacier melts and the depressions fill with water, forming a small lake nestled at the base of a cirque |
| Drift | all rock or sediment transported and deposited by a glacier |
| Till | a type of glacial drift that is deposited directly by glacial ice |
| Stratified till | a type of glacial drift that is first carried by a glacier and then transported and deposited by a stream |
| Moraine | a mound or ridge of glacial till |
| Terminal moraine | marks the southernmost extent of glaciers in the region |
| Lateral moraine | deposits of till that were deposited along the sides of mountain glaciers |
| Esker | a sinuous ridge of sand and gravel deposited in the bed of a stream that flowed beneath a continental glacier |
| Outwash | – sediment deposits from the streams running off the end of a melting glacier |
| Gradualism/uniformitarianism | this principle states that geological change occurs over very long periods of time, by a series of almost imperceptible events |
| Catastrophism | geologic change sometimes occurs rapidly, modifying the path of slow change |
| Alfred Wegener | wrote The Origin of Continents and Oceans; noted that South America ‘fit’ with Africa |
| Pangea | the name for the super continent that existed 300 to 200 million years ago |
| Normal polarity | occurs when the north magnetic pole is located near Earth’s North Pole |
| Reverse polarity | occurs when the north magnetic pole is located near Earth’s South Pole |
| Mid-Oceanic Ridge System | after mapping the sea floor, this was discovered as the largest mountain chain on Earth |
| Sea Floor Spreading | has to do with the two ocean plates in the middle of the Atlantic ocean diverging away; creates the mid oceanic ridge system |
| Tectonic plates | seven large segments of the lithosphere |
| Convection/mantle convection cells | the mantle and lithosphere circulate in huge elliptical cells that rise from the deepest mantle, then flow across the earth’s surface, and finally sink back to the mantle-core boundary |
| Divergent boundary | occurs where two tectonic plates are separating |
| Convergent boundary | occurs where two tectonic plates are coming together |
| Transform boundary | rocks on opposite sides of the fracture slide horizontally past each other |
| Continental rifting | A long, narrow fissure in the Earth marking a zone of the lithosphere that has become thinner due to extensional forces associated with plate tectonics. |
| Subduction | occurs where two plates of different density converge, the denser one sings into the mantle beneath the other |
| Subduction zone | long, narrow belt where a lithospheric plate is sinking into the mantle |
| Island arc | occurs with the formation of volcanoes from subduction in an oceanic-oceanic conversion; over time the erupted lava and debris pile up on the ocean floor until islands are formed; such volcanoes are typically strung out in chains |
| Plastic Deformation | when a rock’s elastic limit is exceeded and it continues to deform like putty |
| Fault | created by the sudden fracture of an elastically deformed rock |
| Earthquake | a sudden motion or trembling of the Earth caused by an abrupt release of energy that is stored in the rocks |
| Seismic Waves | waves that travel through rock; produced by earthquakes |
| Focus | the initial point, where the abrupt movement creates an earthquake, below the surface |
| Epicenter | the point on the Earth’s surface directly above the focus of an earthquake |
| Body waves | a type of seismic wave produced by an earthquake; they travel through the Earth’s interior and carry some of the energy from the focus to the surface |
| P waves | compression elastic wave that causes alternate compression and expansion of the rock; move so fast that they are the first seismic waves to reach an observer |
| S waves | shear waves; termed because they move more slowly than P waves |
| Surface waves | radiate from the epicenter along Earth’s surface during an earthquake |
| Seismograph | records ground motion during an earthquake |
| Pressure-release melting | produces magma beneath a spreading center, where hot asthenosphere rises to fill the gap left by the two separating tectonic plates |
| Mantle Plume | small rising column of hot, plastic mantle rock produced by pressure-release melting |
| Hotspot | formed by the magma rising from a mantle plume |
| Ring of Fire | where 75% of Earth’s active volcanoes lie; a chain of subduction zones at convergent plate boundaries that encircles the Pacific Ocean |
| Pluton | any intrusive igneous rock; formed when magma solidifies within the Earth’s crust to form a large mass of granite |
| Batholith | a pluton with more than 100 square kilometers exposed at the Earth’s surface |
| Stock | similar to a batholith but has a smaller surface area |
| Dike | tabular, or sheet like intrusive rock that forms when magma oozes into a fracture |
| Sill | sheet like rock parallel to the layering |
| Pahoehoe lava | lava with low viscosity that continues to flow as it cools and stiffens, forming smooth, glassy-surfaced, wrinkled ridges |
| aa lava | higher viscosity lava where the surface partially solidifies as it flows; solid crust breaks up as the deeper molten lava continues to move causing a jagged, rubbled, broken surface |
| Tephra | liquid magma and fragments ejected from an explosively erupting volcano |
| Volcanic Ash | tiny fragments of glass that are formed when liquid magma explode into the air |
| Cinders | volcanic fragments that vary in size from 2 to 64 mm |
| Volcanic blocks | volcanic fragments that are larger than 64 mm |
| Pyroclastic rock | clastic rocks composed solely or primarily of volcanic materials |
| Flood basalt | when fissures extend for tend or hundreds of kilometers and pour thousands of cubic kilometers of lava onto the Earth’s surface covering the landscape |
| Volcano | formed when lava is too viscous to spread out as a flood and builds a hill or mountain instead |
| Crater | bowl-like depression at the summit of the volcano where the vent is located |
| Shield volcano | fluid basaltic magma often builds this type of gently sloping mountain |
| Cinder cone | a small volcano composed of pyroclastic fragments; forms when large amounts of gas accumulate in rising magma |
| Composite cone | consists of alternating layers of lava and loose pyroclastic material; formed over a long period of time from alternating lava flows and pyroclastic eruptions |
| Caldera | the roof collapse that occurs at the top of a volcano because so much material has erupted from the top of the magma chamber |
| Crater | bowl-like depression at the summit of the volcano where the vent is located |
| Orogeny | the process of natural mountain building, and involves a variety of processes (deposition, deformation, folding and thrust-faulting, metamorphism, granitic batholiths, volcanic activity, oceanic trenches) |
| Folds | tends to happen as pressure is added to rocks, can be symmetrical or asymmetrical |
| Syncline | fold arching downward |
| Anticline | fold arching upward |
| Dome | a circular or elliptical anticline structure |
| Basin | a circular or elliptical syncline structure |
| Fault | a fracture along which rock on one side has moved relative to rock on the other side |
| Thrust fault | occurs when rock is being pushed together and one side slips over the other |
| Horsts | ridges that form where tectonic forces stretch the crust over a broad area, associated with faults |
| Grabens | valleys that form where tectonic forces stretch the crust over a broad area, associated with faults |
| Accretionary Prism (Zone of Deposition) | – sediment eroded from the orogenic belt accumulated in the trench and is intensely deformed as the plates converge. Like the wedge of earth ahead of a bulldozer, the sediment thickens until it is capable of resisting further deformation |
| Igneous Arc | when the descending oceanic plate reaches enough depth, it melts Magma invades the crust, creating batholiths and volcanic mountain chains Also produces metamorphism, and makes the crust easer to deform. the belt of greatest deformation & igneous activity |
| Foreland | compression of the crust results in folding and thrust-faulting. Often this deformation is thin-skinned;rock layers near the surface become detached from deeper layers like a wrinkled carpet.(decollement) |
| Craton | the stable interior of the continent. IT may be thinly mantled with sedimentary rocks or have large areas of ancient igneous and metamorphic rocs |
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gnm3fs
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