The process by which atmospheric and environmental agents, such as wind, rain, and temperature change, disintegrate and decompose rock.
What is weathering?
100
Describes how Earth is divided into three layers based on chemical composition.
What are the compositional layers of Earth?
100
The theory that Earth's lithosphere is made of large pieces called tectonic plates that are in constant motion as a result of density differences caused by the heat flow inside Earth.
What is the theory of plate tectonics?
100
Twisting of rock.
What is shear stress?
100
A movement or trembling of the ground caused by a sudden release of energy when rocks along a fault move.
What is an earthquake?
200
A series of processes in which rocks form,change from one type to another, are destroyed, and form again by geological processes.
What is the rock cycle?
200
The layer where convection currents are located.
What is the mantle?
200
States that the continents were once one landmass, that broke up and then drifted to their present locations.
What is continental drift?
200
A fold in which the oldest rock layers are at the fold's center and the youngest rock layers are outside the fold.
What is an anticline?
200
A vent or fissure in Earth's surface where magma and gases are expelled.
What is a volcano?
300
Forms when chemical processes or temperature and pressure change rock.
What is metamorphic rock?
300
The soft layer of the mantle on which the tectonic plates move.
What is aesthenosphere?
300
Thicker, less dense crust.
What is continental crust?
300
The hanging wall moves down in relation to the footwall, as what you would usually expect for this fault.
What is a normal fault?
300
The three types of volcanoes.
What are cinder cones, shield volcanoes, and composite volcanoes?
400
Forms when rock pieces become cemented together.
What is sedimentary rock?
400
Divided into pieces call tectonic plates.
What is the lithosphere?
400
A boundary at which two plates slide past each other horizontally.
What is a transform boundary?
400
A break in a body of rock along which one block slides in relation to another.
What is a fault?
400
A location where a volcano can form when a mantle plume rises beneath the lithosphere.
What is a hot spot?
500
An area of deep cracks that form between tectonic plates that are moving apart.
What is a rift zone?
500
The densest layer of our planet.
What is the core?
500
The three possible mechanisms for tectonic plate motion.
What are mantle convection, ridge push, and slab pull.
500
Forms when compression folds and uplift rock layers.
What are folded mountains?
500
The sudden return of elastically deformed rock to its undeformed shape.