The structure of the Earth - Key terms

Question	Answer
Suture line	The zone marking the boundary of two colliding plates.
Benioff zone	Area in the subduction zone where most earthquakes take place.
Lava	Once magma reaches the Earth's surface it is known as lava.
Continental Shelf	When continental crust is covered by an ocean.
Focus	The centre of the earthquake.
Epicentre	Lies directly above the focus and suffers the greatest intensity of seismic waves.
Longitudinal waves	Have a push-pull motion where particles travel in the same direction as the waves.
Transverse waves	Particles swing back and forth on a vertical plane like ocean waves.
Wavelength	The distance between two peaks (or troughs) in a wave.
Viscous	slow moving
Tephra	Ash
Pyroclasts	rocks
Pyroclastic	Fire-broken
Lapilli	small stones
bombs (volcano)	larger material
Pumice	Solidified foam, scum on top of the lava.
Nuee ardente	Fast moving cloud of very hot, toxic gas.
Ignimbrite	The material deposited by nuee ardente.
Solfatara	Sulphurous deposits formed around a vent.
Pseudo-bedding	Parallel horizontal planes.
Joints	Small cracks in the layers of rock created during earth movements
Denudation	Long-term sum of processes that cause the wearing away of the earth’s surface.
Precipitation (chemistry)	It is the formation of a solid in a solution or inside another solid during a chemical reaction.
Rock outcrop	The part of the rock formation that appears above the surface.
Metamorphic	Changed in shape or form.
Decomposer	Bacteria, fungi. Can be part of any trophic level E.g. detritivores.
Omnivore	'All-eaters'
Yield	Production
Nutrient cycling	The circulation of chemical energy from environment to organism and back.
Podsolic soil	A leached soil formed mainly in cool, humid climates.
Ferrallitic	Any one of a group of soils that form in the humid tropics as the result of chemical weathering.

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The structure of the Earth - Key terms

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	Created by Sharondeep over 11 years ago