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Wilson Ocean Vocab 3
Oceanography Vocabulary 3: Earth Structure and Plate Tectonics
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Density Stratified | Each deeper layer is denser than the layer above it. |
| Density | An expression of the relative heaviness of a substance. |
| Earthquakes | Low-frequency waves that travel through the interior of the Earth. |
| Seismic Waves | Low-frequency waves earthquakes emit. |
| Surface Waves | Waves that move along Earth's surface. |
| Body Waves | Less dramatic, but very useful in analyzing Earth's interior structure. |
| P Wave (Primary Wave) | A compressional wave similar in behavior to a sound wave. |
| S Wave (Secondary Wave) | A shear wave like that seen in a rope shaken side to side. |
| Seismograph | An instrument that senses and records earthquakes. |
| Shadow Zone | A wide band from which S Waves were absent, would be found on the side of the Earth opposite the location of an earthquake. |
| Crust | The thin, relatively lightweight outermost layer of the Earth. |
| Oceanic Crust | Thin layer mostly made of Basalt |
| Basalt | A heavy, dark-colored rock composed largely of oxygen, silicon, magnesium, and iron. |
| Continental Crust | Thicker layer mostly made of Granite. |
| Granite | A familiar light colored rock composed mainly of oxygen, silicon, and aluminum. |
| Mantle | Layer beneath the crust,composes 68 percent of Earth's mass and 83 percent of its volume. |
| Core | Earth's innermost layer, consisted mainly of iron and nickel, along with silicon, sulfur, and heavy elements. |
| Lithosphere | Earth's cool, rigid outer layer, 100-200 kilometers thick. |
| Asthenosphere | The hot, partially melted, slowly flowing layer of upper mantle below the lithosphere extending to a depth of about 350-650 kilometers. |
| Lower Mantle | Extends to the core, the mantle below the asthenosphere doesn't melt. |
| Core (Parts) | The outer core is a dense, viscous liquid while the inner core is a solid with a maximum density of about 16 g/cm 3. |
| Buoyancy | The ability of an object to float in a fluid by displacing a volume of that fluid equal in weight to the floating objects weight. |
| Isostatic Equilibrium | In a slow-motion version of a ship floating in water, the entire continent stands this way. |
| Fault | A plane of weakness. |
| Radioactive Decay | An important source of heat not recognized in Lord Kelvin's time. |
| Conduction | Internal heat journey's towards the surface. |
| Convection | When a fluid or semisolid is heated, expands, and becomes less dense, and rises. |
| Uniformitarianism | Suggested that all of Earth's geological features and history could be explained through processes identical to ones acting today and that these processes must have been at work for a very long time. |
| Catastrophism | Convinced that Earth was very young and that the biblical flood was responsible for misleading the appearance of Earth's great age. |
| Alfred Wegener | A busy German meteorologist and polar explorer. |
| Continental Drift | Proposed by Alfred Wegener in a lecture in 1912, suggested that all Earth's land had once been joined into a singular super continent surrounded by an ocean. |
| Pangaea | Earth's one land mass. |
| Panthalassa | Surrounding ocean of Pangaea. |
| Pacific Ring of Fire | A circle of violent geological activity surrounding much of the Pacific Ocean. |
| Radiometric Dating | perfected after WWII, based on the discovery that unstable, naturally radioactive elements lose particles from their nuclei and ultimately change into new, stable elements. |
| Echo Sounders | Devices that measure depth by bouncing high-frequency waves off the bottom of the ocean. |
| Convection Currents | Slow-flowing circuits of material within the mantle. |
| Seafloor Spreading | Mid-ocean ridges were spreading centers and sources of new ocean floor rising from the asthenosphere. |
| Spreading Centers | Sources of new ocean floor rising from the asthenosphere. |
| Subduction | The crust plunges down into the mantle along the periphery of the asthenosphere. |
| Subduction Zone | Areas of subduction. |
| Plate Tectonics | Theory that Earth's outer layer consists of about a dozen separate major lithospheric plates. |
| Plates | Separate major lithospheric plates floating on the asthenosphere. |
| Magma | Molten rock. |
| Divergent Plate Boundary | A line along which two plates are moving apart and at which oceanic crust forms. |
| Convergent Plate Boundary | Regions of violent geological activity where plates are pushing together. |
| Transform Faults | The axis of spreading is a jagged trace abruptly offset by numerous faults. |
| Transform Plate Boundary | Where lithospheric plates shear laterally past one another. |
| Curie Point (Curie Temperature) | Point below which magnetic minerals cool. |
| Paleomagnetism | The fossil or remnant magnetic field of a rock. |
| Magnetometer | Measures the amount and direction of residual magnetism in a rock sample. |
| Mantle Plumes | Continent-sized columns of super heated mantle originating at the core-mantle boundary. |
| Superplume | Largest known mantle plume. |
| Hot Spots | One of the surface expressions of plumes of magma rising from relatively stationary sources of heat in the mantle. |
| Terranes | Plateaus, isolated segments of seafloor,ocean ridges, ancient island arcs, and parts of continental crust that are squeezed and sheared onto the face of a continent. |
| Ophiolites | Heavy wrinkled rocks containing pillow basalts and material derived from the upper mantle; contains metallic ores similar to those known to exist at the mid-ocean ridge spreading centers. |
| Richter Scale | Expresses/measures an earthquake's magnitude. |
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