Geology - High School

No one will fault you for wanting to dig into this geology word list. Learn about the structure of the earth, types of rock, earthquakes and volcanoes, the geologic time scale, and processes such as sedimentation and erosion. It won't take eons to master these essential terms.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. active
    (of e.g. volcanos) erupting or liable to erupt
  2. aftershock
    a tremor following the main tremor of an earthquake
  3. archaean
    of or relating to the earliest known rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
  4. asthenosphere
    the zone of Earth's mantle that lies below the lithosphere
  5. bed
    (geology) a stratum of rock (especially sedimentary rock)
  6. boulder
    a large smooth mass of rock detached from a place of origin
  7. Cambrian
    the geologic period from about 541 to 485 million years ago
  8. Carboniferous
    from 345 million to 280 million years ago
  9. Cenozoic
    the current geologic era, starting about 66 million years ago
  10. cinder
    a fragment of incombustible matter left after a fire
  11. cleavage
    the act of splitting
  12. composition
    the way in which someone or something is put together
  13. compression
    an increase in the density of something
  14. conglomerate
    a composite rock made up of particles of varying size
  15. continent
    one of the large landmasses of the earth
  16. continental drift
    the gradual movement of very large land masses
  17. continental shelf
    the relatively shallow seabed surrounding a continent
  18. convergence
    the occurrence of two or more things coming together
  19. core
    the central part of the Earth
  20. Cretaceous
    the geologic period from about 145 to 66 million years ago
  21. crust
    the outer layer of the Earth
  22. crystal
    a solid having a highly regular atomic structure
  23. density
    the amount per unit size
  24. Devonian
    relating to the period from about 419 to 359 million years ago
  25. dormant
    not erupting but not extinct
  26. earthquake
    vibration from underground movement along a fault plane
  27. element
    a substance that cannot be separated into simpler substances
  28. eon
    the longest unit of geological time
  29. epicenter
    a point on the Earth's surface directly above an earthquake
  30. epoch
    a unit of geological time that is divided into ages
  31. era
    a major division of geological time
  32. erosion
    the process of wearing or grinding something down
  33. extinct
    (of e.g. volcanos) permanently inactive
  34. extrusive
    forced while molten through cracks in the earth's surface
  35. fault
    a crack in the earth's crust resulting from displacement
  36. folding
    a geological process that causes a bend in a stratum of rock
  37. foliated
    having thin leaflike layers or strata
  38. foliation
    (geology) the arrangement of leaflike layers in a rock
  39. formation
    (geology) a distinct unit of rocks or layers
  40. fossil
    the remains of a plant or animal from a past geological age
  41. geologist
    a specialist in the history of the Earth recorded in rocks
  42. geyser
    a spring that discharges hot water and steam
  43. glacier
    a slowly moving mass of ice
  44. Gondwanaland
    a hypothetical continent that (according to plate tectonic theory) broke up later into India and Australia and Africa and South America and Antarctica
  45. gravel
    rock fragments and pebbles
  46. Hadean
    the first geologic eon, from about 4.6 to 4.0 billion years ago
  47. hardness
    the property of being rigid and resistant to pressure
  48. hot spot
    a point of relatively intense heat or radiation
  49. hot spring
    a natural spring of water at a temperature of 70 F or above
  50. hydrosphere
    the watery layer of the earth's surface
  51. igneous
    produced by the action of fire or intense heat
  52. intrusive
    forced while molten into cracks between layers of other rock
  53. Jurassic
    the geologic period from about 201 to 145 million years ago
  54. Laurasia
    a hypothetical continent that (according to plate tectonic theory) broke up later into North America and Europe and Asia
  55. lava
    rock that in its molten form issues from volcanos
  56. lithosphere
    the solid part of the Earth
  57. luster
    the property of something that shines with reflected light
  58. magma
    molten rock in the earth's crust
  59. magnetism
    attraction for iron
  60. magnitude
    the property of relative size or extent
  61. mantle
    the layer of the earth between the crust and the core
  62. Mesozoic
    the geologic era from about 252 to 66 million years ago
  63. metamorphic
    having undergone transformation by pressure, heat, etc.
  64. mineral
    a solid inorganic substance occurring in nature
  65. mineralogist
    a scientist trained in mineralogy
  66. Mohs scale
    a scale of hardness of solids
  67. molten
    reduced to liquid form by heating
  68. morphology
    the science that studies the formation of rocks and land forms
  69. mountain
    a land mass that projects well above its surroundings
  70. normal fault
    an inclined fault in which the hanging wall appears to have slipped downward relative to the footwall
  71. Ordovician
    relating to the period from about 485 to 444 million years ago
  72. organic
    having properties characteristic of living beings
  73. Paleozoic
    the geologic era from about 541 to 252 million years ago
  74. Pangaea
    (plate tectonics) a hypothetical continent including all the landmass of the earth prior to the Triassic period when it split into Laurasia and Gondwanaland
  75. pebble
    a small smooth rounded rock
  76. period
    a unit of geological time when a system of rocks formed
  77. Permian
    the geologic period from about 299 to 252 million years ago
  78. plate
    a rigid layer of the Earth's crust
  79. plate tectonics
    the movement or study of the movement of Earth's crust
  80. Proterozoic
    relating to the eon from about 2.5 billion to 541 million years ago
  81. Quaternary
    relating to the period from about 2.6 million years ago to the present
  82. reverse fault
    a geological fault in which the upper side appears to have been pushed upward by compression
  83. Richter scale
    a system once used to measure the strength of an earthquake
  84. rock
    material consisting of the aggregate of minerals
  85. sand
    a loose material consisting of grains of rock or coral
  86. sediment
    matter that has been deposited by some natural process
  87. sedimentary
    formed by or containing the accumulation of deposited matter
  88. sedimentation
    the accumulation of matter deposited by some natural process
  89. seismograph
    an instrument for measuring movements of the ground
  90. seismologist
    a scientist who studies earthquakes
  91. shale
    a sedimentary rock formed by the deposition of successive layers of clay
  92. shear
    a deformation of an object in which parallel planes shift
  93. Silurian
    relating to the period from about 444 to 419 million years ago
  94. stratum
    one of several parallel layers of material
  95. stress
    (physics) force that produces strain on a physical body
  96. superposition
    (geology) the principle that in a series of stratified sedimentary rocks the lowest stratum is the oldest
  97. temperature
    the degree of hotness or coldness of a body or environment
  98. tension
    a stress that produces an elongation of a physical body
  99. Tertiary
    relating to the period from about 66 to 2.6 million years ago
  100. Triassic
    the geologic period from about 252 to 201 million years ago
  101. tsunami
    a cataclysm resulting from a destructive sea wave
  102. volcanic
    relating to eruptions of gas and lava from the earth's crust
  103. volcano
    a fissure in the earth's crust through which gases erupt
  104. weather
    change under the action or influence of the climate
Created on Thu Feb 16 18:53:07 EST 2017 (updated Tue Apr 18 16:20:05 EDT 2017)

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