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geology final
Historical Geology 1405 final vocab
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Lithosphere | The outer, rigid part of Earth consisting of the upper mantle, oceanic crust, and continental crust; lies above the asthenosphere. |
| Asthenosphere | Part of the upper mantle over which the lithosphere moves; it behaves as a plastic and flows |
| Crust | The upper part of Earth’s lithosphere, which is separated from the mantle by the Moho; consists of continental crust with an overall granitic composition and thinner, denser oceanic crust made up of basalt and gabbro |
| Mantle | The inner part of Earth surrounding the core, accounting for about 85% of the planet’s volume; probably composed of peridotite. |
| outer core/ inner core | The inner part of Earth from a depth of about 2900 km consisting of a liquid outer part and a solid inner part; probably composed mostly of iron and nickel. |
| Hypothesis | A provisional explanation for observations that is subject to continual testing and modification if necessary. If well supported by evidence, hypotheses may become theories. |
| theory | An explanation for some natural phenomenon with a large body of supporting evidence; theories must be testable by experiments and/or observations, such as plate tectonic theory. |
| natural selection | A mechanism accounting for differential survival and reproduction among members of a species; the mechanism proposed by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace to account for evolution. |
| system | The fundamental unit in the hierarchy of time–related parts that interact in an organized manner. Earth’s systems include the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, as well as Earth’s lithosphere, mantle, and core. |
| Atom | The smallest unit of matter that retains the characteristics of an element |
| igneous rock | Rock formed when magma or lava cools and crystallizes and when pyroclastic materials become consolidated. |
| metamorphic rock | Any rock altered in the solid state from preexisting rocks by any combination of heat, pressure, and chemically active fluids. |
| sedimentary rock | Any rock composed of (1) particles of preexisting rocks, (2) or made up of minerals derived from solution by inorganic chemical processes or by the activities of organisms, and (3) masses of consolidated organic matter as in coal. |
| Lava | Magma that reaches the surface. |
| Magma | Molten rock material below the surface |
| Evaporite | Sedimentary rock formed by inorganic chemical precipitation from evaporating water (for example, rock salt and rock gypsum |
| Rock | An aggregate of one or more minerals as in granite (feldspars and quartz) and limestone (calcite), but also includes rocklike materials such as natural glass (obsidian) and consolidated organic material (coal). |
| Mineral | Naturally occurring, inorganic, crystalline solid, having characteristic physical properties and a narrowly defined chemical composition |
| lithification | The process of converting sediment into sedimentary rock |
| divergent plate boundary | The boundary between two plates that move apart; characterized by seismicity, volcanism, and the origin of new oceanic lithosphere |
| convergent plate boundary | The boundary between two plates that move toward one another |
| transform plate boundary | Plate boundary along which adjacent plates slide past one another and crust is neither produced nor destroyed |
| hotspot | Localized zone of melting below the lithosphere; detected by volcanism at the surface. |
| Orogeny | An episode of mountain building involving deformation, usually accompanied by igneous activity, metamorphism, and crustal thickening |
| Pangaea | Alfred Wegener’s name for a Late Paleozoic supercontinent made up of most of Earth’s landmasses |
| seafloor spreading | The phenomenon involving the origin of new oceanic crust at spreading ridges that then moves away from ridges and is eventually consumed at subduction zones |
| principle of superposition | A principle holding that sedimentary rocks in a vertical sequence formed one on top of the other so that the oldest layer is at the bottom of the sequence whereas the youngest is at the top |
| principle of cross-cutting relationships | A principle holding that an igneous intrusion or fault must be younger than the rocks it intrudes or cuts across |
| principle of original horizontality | According to this principle, sediments are deposited in horizontal or nearly horizontal layers |
| angular unconformity | An unconformity below which strata generally dip at a steeper angle than those above. |
| Nonconformity | An unconformity in which stratified sedimentary rocks overlie an erosion surface cut into igneous or metamorphic rocks |
| Disconformity | A type of unconformity above and below which the strata are parallel |
| Formation | The basic lithostratigraphic unit; a mappable unit of strata with distinctive upper and lower boundaries |
| Fossil | Remains or traces of prehistoric organisms preserved in rocks |
| Darwin | Natural Selection |
| Wegener | Continental Drift |
| parent element | An unstable element that changes by radioactive decay into a stable daughter element |
| daughter element | An element formed by radioactive decay of another element, for example, argon 40 is the daughter element of potassium 40 |
| delta | A deposit of sediment where a stream or river enters a lake or the ocean |
| transgression | Invasion of a coastal area or much of a continent by the sea as sea level rises resulting in a landward migration of the shoreline |
| regression | seaward migration of the shoreline |
| gene | A specific segment of a chromosome constituting the basic unit of heredity |
| mitosis | Call division resulting in two cells with the same number of chromosomes as the parent cell; takes place in all cells except sex cells |
| meiosis | Cell division yielding sex cells, sperm and eggs in animals, and pollen and ovules in plants, in which the number of chromosomes is reduced by half |
| craton | Name applied to a stable nucleus of a continent consisting of a Precambrian shield and a platform of buried ancient rocks |
| paleontology | The use of fossils to study life history and relationships among organisms |
| mutation | Any change in the genes of organisms; yields some of the variation on which natural selection acts |
| Species | A population of similar individuals that in nature can interbreed and produce fertile offspring |
| Stromatolite | A biogenic sedimentary structure, especially in limestone, produced by entrapment of sediment grains on sticky mats of photosynthesizing bacteria |
| detrital sedimentary rock | Rock made up of the solid particles derived from preexisting rocks as in sandstone |
| chemical sedimentary rock | Rock formed of minerals derived from materials dissolved during weathering |
| deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) | The chemical substance of which chromosomes are composed |
| correlation | Demonstration of the physical continuity of stratigraphic units over an area; also matching up time–equivalent events in different areas |
| epeiric (epicontinental) sea | A broad shallow sea that covers part of a continent; six epeiric seas were present in North America during the Phanerozoic Eon, such as the Sauk Sea |
| Appalachian mobile belt | A long narrow region of tectonic activity along the eastern margin of the North American craton extending from Newfoundland to Georgia; probably continuous to the southwest with the Ouachita mobile belt |
| organic reef | A wave–resistant limestone structure with a framework of animal skeletons, such as a coral reef or stromatoporoid reef |
| cyclothem | A sequence of cyclically repeated sedimentary rocks resulting from alternating periods of marine and nonmarine deposition; commonly contain a coal bed |
| carnivore | Any animal that eats other animals, living or dead, as a source of nutrients |
| herbivore | An animal dependent on vegetation as a source of nutrients |
| amniote seed | An egg in which an embryo develops in a liquid–filled cavity (the amnion), a waste sac is present as well as a yolk sac for nourishment |
| gymnosperm | A flowerless, seed–bearing plant |
| angiosperm | Vascular plants having flowers and seeds; the flowering plants |
| nekton | Actively swimming organisms, such as fish, whales, and squid |
| plankton | Animals and plants that float passively, such as phytoplankton and zooplankton |
| ectotherm | Any of the cold–blooded vertebrates such as amphibians and reptiles; animals that depend on external heat to regulate body temperature |
| endotherm | Any of the warm–blooded vertebrates such as birds and mammals who maintain their body temperature within narrow limits by internal processes |
| dinosaur | Any of the Mesozoic reptiles belonging to the orders Saurischia and Ornithischia |
| mass extinction | Greatly accelerated extinction rates resulting in marked decrease in biodiversity, such as the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous |
| vertebrate | Any animal possessing a segmented vertebral column as in fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals; members of the subphylum Vertebrata |
| Basin and Range Province | an area of Cenozoic block faulting centered on Nevada but extending into adjacent states and northern mexico |
| glacier | a mass of ice on land that moves by plastic flow and basal slip |
| cirque | a steep walled, bowl shaped depression formed on a mountainside by glacial erosion |
| moraine | a ridge or mound of unsorted unstratified debris deposited by a glacier |
| isostasy | the concept of earth’s crust floating on the more dense underlying mantle |
| varve | a dark light couplet of sedimentary laminations representing an annual deposit in a glacial lake |
| valley glacier | a glacier confined to a mountain valley |
| ice cap | a dome shaped mass of glacial ice covering less than 50,000 km2 |
| primate | the order of mammals that includes prosimians monkey apes and humans |
| ungulate | an informal term referring to a variety of mammals with hoofs |
| grazer | an animal that eats low-growing vegetation especially grasses |
| anthropoid | any member of the primate, monkeys apes or humans |
| hominid | family that includes bipedal primates such as Australopithecus and Homo |
| hominoid | the superfamily that includes apes and humans |
| Australopithecus africanus | all species that existed in south Africa during the Pliocene and pleistocene |
| Neanderthal | a type of human that inhabited the east 200,000 to 30,000 years ago, may be a sub or separate species |
Created by:
romoore245
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