Rocks & Minerals
Sedimentary rocks occur only in the uppermost part of this layer of the Earth.
What is the crust?
This is the estimated age of the Earth, based on radiometric dating of rocks and meteorites.
What is approximately 4.54 billion years?
This is considered the most important water on Earth because it is essential for life and human activities.
What is freshwater?
From the innermost to the outermost, this is the order of the Earth’s layers.
What is the inner core, outer core, mantle, and crust?
The type of plate boundary where tectonic plates collide and create mountain ranges (orogeny) is known as this.
What is a convergent boundary?
These rocks are formed from the precipitation of minerals from solution.
What are chemical sedimentary rocks?
This is the main source of external energy to the Earth System, driving processes like weather and climate.
What is the Sun?
This term refers to the flowing body of water that typically moves across the land, shaping valleys, eroding rock, and carrying sediment.
What is a river/stream?
This term best describes the shape of the Earth, accounting for its slightly flattened poles and bulging equator.
What is a geoid
This term describes a fracture in Earth's crust along which movement has occurred, often resulting in earthquakes.
What is a fault?
This class of minerals, composed of silicon and oxygen, represents the majority of Earth's crust.
What are silicates?
This method of dating uses the decay of isotopes to determine the absolute age of rocks and minerals.
What is radiometric dating?
The form and topography (depth profile) of the ocean floor is termed this.
What is bathymetry?
This layer of the Earth, composed primarily of molten iron and nickel, is responsible for generating the Earth's magnetic field.
Core (outer)
This term best describes the system used to divide Earth's history into different periods, based on significant events and fossil records.
What is the Geological Time Scale (GTS)?
This term refers to the original rock type that undergoes metamorphism to form a metamorphic rock.
What is a protolith?
This type of rock cannot be radiometric dated.
What is sedimentary rocks
This term describes the area in an aquifer where all the pores are completely filled with water.
What is the saturated zone?
This type of seismic wave cannot pass through liquid, making it unable to travel through the Earth's outer core.
What are S-waves (secondary waves)?
This scale measures the intensity of an earthquake based on observed effects like building damage and human perception.
What is the Mercalli Intensity Scale?
This series describes the sequence of mineral crystallization from magma as it cools, separating into two branches: continuous and discontinuous.
What is Bowen's Reaction Series?
This type of unconformity occurs when sedimentary rock layers are deposited on top of eroded igneous or metamorphic rocks.
What is a nonconformity?
This is the primary factor that determines the movement of groundwater through an aquifer.
What is permeability?
This chart is used to calculate the distance between an earthquake's epicenter and a seismic station based on the difference in arrival times of P-waves and S-waves.
What is seismic travel-time curve?
James Hutton, known as the "Father of Geology," developed this theory, which proposes that geological processes observed in the present have operated in the same way throughout Earth's history.
What is the theory of uniformitarianism?