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Plate Tectonics
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Asthenosphere | The upper layer of the earth's mantle, below the lithosphere, in which there is relatively low resistance to plastic flow and convection is thought to occur. |
| Continental Drift | The gradual movement of the continents across the earth's surface through geological time. |
| Lithosphere | The rigid outer part of the earth, consisting of the crust and upper mantle. |
| Pangaea | A hypothetical super-continent that included all current land masses, believed to have been in existence before the continents broke apart during the Triassic and Jurassic Periods. |
| Plate | The two sub-layers of the earth's crust (lithosphere) that move, float, and sometimes fracture and whose interaction causes continental drift, earthquakes, volcanoes, mountains, and oceanic trenches. |
| Plate Tectonics | A theory explaining the structure of the earth's crust and many associated phenomena as resulting from the interaction of rigid lithospheric plates that move slowly over the underlying mantle. |
| Sea Floor Spreading | The formation of new areas of oceanic crust, which occurs through the upwelling of magma at midocean ridges and its subsequent outward movement on either side. |
| Earthquake | A sudden and violent shaking of the ground, sometimes causing great destruction, as a result of movements within the earth's crust or volcanic action. |
| Epicenter | The point on the earth's surface vertically above the focus of an earthquake. |
| Fault | (of a rock formation) be broken by a fault or faults |
| Focus | The point inside the crust where the pressure is released. |
| Magnitude | A measure of the size of an earthquake based on the quantity of energy released: specified on the Richter scale See Richter scale. |
| Normal Fault | A geologic fault in which the hanging wall has moved downward relative to the footwall. |
| Reverse Fault | A geologic fault in which the hanging wall has moved upward relative to the footwall. |
| Seismic Wave | A wave of energy that is generated by an earthquake or other earth vibration and that travels within the earth or along its surface. |
| Seismograph | Measuring instrument for earthquakes that tracks duration and magnitude. |
| Strike-Slip Fault | Similarly caused by horizontal compression, but they release their energy by rock displacement in a horizontal direction almost parallel to the compressional force. |
| Tsunami | A large wave on the ocean, usually caused by an undersea earthquake, a volcanic eruption, or coastal landslide. |
| Batholith | A large emplacement of igneous intrusive (also called plutonic) rock that forms from cooled magma deep in the Earth's crust. |
| Caldera | A large basin-shaped crater at the top of a volcano, formed by the collapse or explosion of the cone. |
| Cinder Cone Volcano | A volcano composed of volcanic cinders (scoria), or small, rough particles of hardened lava. When lava that is highly charged with gas bubbles erupts from a vent under pressure, it tends to shoot straight up into the air. |
| Dike | An embankment for controlling or holding back the waters of the sea or a river. |
| Hot Spot | An area in the upper mantle from which heat rises in a plume from deep in the Earth. |
| Shield Volcano | A type of volcano usually built almost entirely of fluid magma flows. |
| Sill | A tabular sheet intrusion that has intruded between older layers of sedimentary rock, beds of volcanic lava or tuff, or even along the direction of foliation in metamorphic rock. |
| Volcano | An opening in Earth's crust that allows molten rock from beneath the crust to reach the surface. |
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