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earth science mt
earth science mid term
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| earth science | the study of all the sciences tha help us to understand the planet on which we live. |
| environment | the world in which we live. |
| physical geology | the study of the materials and processes tha form the earth |
| historical geology | study of the possible origins of the earth and changes that have occured since its beginning |
| oceanography | a blend of all the natural sciences as they relate to seawater, seashores, the seafloor, |
| meteorology | the stufy of weather, climates, and the atmosphere |
| astronomy | the study of universe surrounding earth |
| system | set of interacting components |
| scientific theory | well tested, widely accepted, and based on observable facts |
| the scientific method | observation, hypothesis, experimentation, conclusion |
| composition of earth's "outside" | hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere |
| composition of earth's "inside" | crust, mantle, outer core, inner core |
| mineral | naturally occuring inorganic solid that possesses an orderly crystalline structure and a difinite composition normally made of two or more elements chemically combined as a compound |
| halite | table salt |
| physical properties of minerals | external crystal form, luster, streak, hardness, fracture, cleavage, and specific gravity |
| silicates | most common mineral, always contains oxygen and silicon |
| rocks | peices of the earth's crust which usually contain more than one mineral |
| types of rocks | sedimentary, igneous, metamorphic |
| rock cycle | continual movement of material from one rock type to another |
| igneous rock | formed from magma |
| sedimentary rocks | form from the compaction and cementation of small particles under the pressue of th ematerial above them |
| metamorphic rock | rocks produced form existing sedimentary igneous, and metamorphic rocs. |
| mechanical weathering | very slow process in which rocks are broken into smaller and smaller pieces consisting of the same material as the rock itself |
| frost wedging (mechanical weathering) | repeated cycl of freezing and thawing water in rock cracks |
| expansion due to unloading (mechanical weathering) | result of the top layer of rock eroding away and reduces the pressure on the lower layers causing sheeting, or separation of layers of rock |
| biological activity (mechanical weathering) | plant roots pushing in to rock, splitting the rock, animals burrowing, human blasting |
| chemical weathering | when the minerals in the rock react with other substanses in a chemical reaction thus chaning the make up and stucture of the mineral, 2 important substances, water and oxygen |
| soil | mixture of both mineral and organic material |
| topography | the "lay" or the land |
| erosion | the transport of soil materials due to water, wind or ice |
| sheet erosion | thin layers of water flowing across a surface |
| sediment | soil in water |
| steam | any flowing body of water |
| laminar slow | smooth flow |
| turbulent flow | rough, more common |
| gradient | slope |
| dissolved load | sediment disolved in water, usually not seen |
| suspended load, | "mud" in muddy water |
| bottom, or bed load | sediment that pushes along the bottom |
| amount of load a stream can carry | depends on capacity and competence |
| ground water | all fresh water not frozen in glaciers, and ice sheets(majority in cracks in rock |
| porosity | a measure of how much of a given formation is open space(mostly microscopic) |
| saturated | full (of water) |
| water table | the top of the saturated level |
| permiability | a measure of how easily water can move through rock or soil |
| aquifer | rock layers that are permeable to water, where wells are dug |
| spring(water) | place where the water table level is higher than the ground around it, usually occur on a hillside |
| artisian wells | complex geological system in which the water is actually pushed above the water table twards the surface |
| potable | not drinkable or pure |
| moraines | layers of till which form ridges across the landscape |
| till | large particles left behind by glaciers |
| kettles | depressions left by non moving glaciers that have been buried by the till and then have melted |
| ephemeral stream | stream that carries water only after rainfall |
| diverging boundaries | when plates are moving away from each other |
| converging boundaries | when plates are moving towards each other |
| subduction | when two plates move towards each other and one sinks below the other |
| transform fault boundaries | when two plates are parallel to each other but moving in opposite directions, causing friction between them |
| fault | cracks between two plates |
| seismograph | measures size and direction of earthquake waves |
| p wave | shake earth side to side |
| s wave | shake earth up and down |
| mercalli scale | measures earthquakes based on observable behavior and destruction |
| richter scale | measures amplitude, height of wave |
| liquification | breaking up of soil in to fluid |
| lithosphere | cool shell including crust and upper mantle |
| moho | boundaries between lithosphere and the rest of the inner core |
| AA flows | lava flows with surfaces rough jagged blocks and sharp edges |
| pahoehoe flows | smooth surfaces,like twisted braids of rope, or liquid pored out |
| pyroclastic material | consist of broken rock, ash, dust, and lava bombs, depending upon the eruption |
| lava bombs | blobs of lava ejected in to the atmosphere while still molten, think raindrop |
| shield volcano | gentle slopes formed by flows of low viscosity lava |
| caldera | center of a volcanos eruption |
| cinder cones | form of small pryoclasts building around the vent |
| composite cone | characterized by steep sides, and steep walled crater |
| nuee arentes | glowing avalanches of hot rock, hot gasses, hot ash, and hot dust |
| lahars | mud flows formed from ash, dust, and melted snow and ice |
| volcanic neck | the remains of the original vent tube |
| batholiths | large pieces of rock from lava pooling and cooling below the earths surface |
| laccoliths | molten rock forcibly injected between sedimentary strata, so as to arch the beds above, while leaving the ones below reflectively flat |
| sills | horizontal tubular intrusive bodies that store magma |
| dikes | discordant bodies that cut across bedding surfaces, transport magma |
| plutons | intrusive phenominon |
| asthenosphere | top of the mantle |
| deformation | folding, flowing, fracturing of rocks |
| ductile deformation | folding and flowing, no breaks |
| synclines | represents folds where layers of rock have sagged |
| anticlnes | folds where the layers have been pushed up |
| normal fault | moving away from each other |
| reveres fault | moving towards each other |
| thrust fault | moving towards each other with subduction |
| slip strike fault | parallel moving in opposite directions |
| joints | cracks in rock where no movement has taken place |
| orogenisis | mountain building |
Created by:
codyknow
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