Flashcards: Plate tectonics

Dunite (pronunciation: /ˈdʌnaɪt/ or /ˈdjuːnaɪt/) (also known as olivinite, not to be confused with the mineral olivenite) is an igneous, plutonic rock, of ultramafic composition, with coarse-grained or phaneritic texture.

Obduction was originally defined by Coleman to mean the overthrusting of oceanic lithosphere onto continental lithosphere at a convergent plate boundary where continental lithosphere is being subducted beneath oceanic lithosphere.

The asthenosphere (from Greek ἀσθενής asthenḗs 'weak' + "sphere") is the highly viscous, mechanically weak and ductilely deforming region of the upper mantle of the Earth.

A mantle plume is a mechanism proposed in 1971 to explain volcanic regions of the Earth that were not thought to be explicable by the then-new theory of plate tectonics.

Rodinia (from the Russian "Родина", ródina, meaning "The Motherland") is a Neoproterozoic supercontinent that was assembled 1.

Vaalbara was an Archean supercontinent that consisted of the Kaapvaal craton, today located in eastern South Africa, and the Pilbara craton, today found in north-western Western Australia.

Continental drift is the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other, thus appearing to "drift" across the ocean bed.

A lithosphere (Ancient Greek: λίθος [lithos] for "rocky", and σφαίρα [sphaira] for "sphere") is the rigid, outermost shell of a terrestrial-type planet or natural satellite that is defined by its rigid mechanical properties.

The oceanic trenches are hemispheric-scale long but narrow topographic depressions of the sea floor.

In geology, geosyncline is a term always used for a subsiding linear trough that was caused by the accumulation of sedimentary rock strata deposited in a basin and subsequently compressed, deformed, and uplifted into a mountain range, with attendant volcanism and plutonism.

A guyot (pronounced /ɡiːˈjoʊ/), also known as a tablemount, is an isolated underwater volcanic mountain (seamount), with a flat top over 200 m (660 ft) below the surface of the sea.

A mid-ocean ridge is an underwater mountain system formed by plate tectonics.

A shield is generally a large area of exposed Precambrian crystalline igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks that form tectonically stable areas.

The supercontinent cycle is the quasi-periodic aggregation and dispersal of Earth's continental crust.

The Tethys Ocean (Greek: Τηθύς) was an ocean that existed between the continents of Gondwana and Laurasia during much of the Mesozoic era, before the opening of the Indian and Atlantic oceans during the Cretaceous period.

A terrane in geology, in full a tectonostratigraphic terrane is a fragment of crustal material formed on, or broken off from, one tectonic plate and accreted or "sutured" to crust lying on another plate.

The Ring of Fire is a major area in the basin of the Pacific Ocean where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.

The West African Craton is one of the five large masses, or cratons, of the Precambrian basement rock of Africa that make up the African Plate, the others being the Kalahari craton, Congo craton, Saharan Metacraton and Tanzania Craton.

An ophiolite (pronunciation: /ˈɒfiəlaɪt/) is a section of the Earth's oceanic crust and the underlying upper mantle that has been uplifted and exposed above sea level and often emplaced onto continental crustal rocks.

Mountain formation refers to the geological processes that underlie the formation of mountains.

Tectonic erosion or subduction erosion is the loss of crust from an overriding tectonic plate due to subduction.

In geology, the crust is the outermost solid shell of a rocky planet or natural satellite, which is chemically distinct from the underlying mantle.

The Juan de Fuca Ridge is a tectonic spreading center located off the coasts of the state of Washington in the United States and the province of British Columbia in Canada.

A superocean is an ocean that surrounds a supercontinent.

List of submarine topographical features, oceanic landforms and topographic elements.

Lost lands can be continents, islands or other regions supposedly existing during prehistory, having since disappeared as a result of catastrophic geological phenomena or slowly rising sea levels since the end of the last Ice Age.

The biological and geological future of Earth can be extrapolated based upon the estimated effects of several long-term influences.

Mantle convection is the slow creeping motion of Earth's solid silicate mantle caused by convection currents carrying heat from the interior of the Earth to the surface.

Continental drip is the observation that southward-pointing landforms are more numerous and prominent than northward-pointing landforms.