Tectonics Key Terms

Question	Answer
Earthquake	Violent shaking of the earth due to the movement on a fault.
Volcano	The location where molten material is erupting on the Earth's surface.
Tsunami	Large ocean waves created by earthquakes or landslides within the ocean.
Tectonic plate	A large area of the Earth's crust which is stable moves slowly around the Earth's surface.
Plate boundary	The edge of a tectonic plate where tectonic activity is most focused.
Divergent plate boundary	Where two tectonic plates are moving away from each other.
Convergent plate boundary	There two tectonic plates are moving towards each other.
Conservative plate boundary	Where two tectonic plates are moving past each other.
Intra-plate earthquakes	Earthquakes that occur in the middle of a tectonic plate rather than on the margins.
Intra-plate volcanism	Volcanic eruptions that occur in the middle of a tectonic plate rather than on the margins.
Convection current	Movement of hot material in the Mantle which is thought to be the primary driver of tectonic plate movement.
Mantle plumes	A distinct column of hot mantle material which is rising towards the surface of the Earth, creating intra-plate volcanism.
Plate tectonics	The theory of how tectonic plates move around the Earth's surface.
Crust	The coolest and thinnest part of the Earth, made up of Continental and Oceanic crust.
Mantle	The large area of molten rock which acts in a plastic fashion between the Crust and the Core of the Earth.
Outer Core	The liquid outer sphere of the Earth's Core, primarily comprising Iron and Nickel, this layer is where the Earth's magnetic field is generated.
Inner Core	The solid inner sphere of the Earth's Core, primarily comprising Iron and Nickel.
Palaeomagnetism	A record of the orientation of past magnetic fields recorded in igneous rocks as they are erupted at mid-ocean ridges.
Sea-floor spreading	The theory of how mid-ocean ridges are formed and new oceanic crust is created and then pushed away from the ridge.
Slab pull	The increased speed of movement of a tectonic plate once subduction has started to occur.
Subduction	The descent and destruction of an oceanic plate back into the mantle.
Magnitude of an earthquake	The size of an earthquake, normally measured on the Magnitude Moment Scale or Richter Scale.
Benioff Zone	An area of earthquakes that can be shown to correlate with the location of a subducting oceanic plate as it descends into the mantle.
Earthquake focus	The location of the origin of movement in an earthquake, it has both a surface location and depth.
Earthquake epicentre	The location on the surface of the origin of an earthquake.
P-waves	Compressional waves which travel fastest through the Earth and can travel through all materials.
S-waves	Shear waves where the movement of the particles is at 90° from the movement of energy transfer, these waves cannot travel through a liquid and are therefore stopped by the Earth's Outer Core.
L-waves	Love waves, travel on the surface of the Earth and involve a circular movement of material as the seismic energy passes through an area.
Liquefaction	The conversion of solid land into liquid due to the shaking occurring in an earthquake. This often leads to the sinking and collapse of buildings on soft sediments.
Landslides	The collapse of material down slopes caused by the violent shaking in an earthquake.
Lava	Molten rock erupted onto the Earth's surface from a volcano.
Pyroclastic flow	An extremely dangerous cloud of solid rock, lava, ash and volcanic gases erupted from some volcanoes. It can travel at speeds of up to 200 km/hr.
Ash fall	The covering of surfaces by small particles of volcanic material (ash) which form during an eruption. These can be found in deposits centimetres to metres thick and are so heavy they can sometimes cause buildings to collapse.
Lahars	A mixture of water and volcanic ash that often occurs after heavy rain in areas recently affected by volcanic eruptions. These can form thick deposits of mud in river valleys that then set to form a material as hard as concrete.
Jokulhlaups	A mixture of water from glaciers melting during a volcanic eruption and volcanic material which is then washed down river valleys and can create serious flooding issues during a volcanic eruption.

Next up

Description

Resource summary

Similar

	Created by Wesley Spearman over 6 years ago