chapter three notes Flashcards
Geosphere
The geosphere includes the rocks and minerals on Earth from the molten rock and heavy metals in the deep interior of the planet to the sand on beaches and peaks of mountains
hydrosphere
all the waters on the earth’s surface, such as lakes and seas, and sometimes including water over the earth’s surface, such as clouds.
crust
Earth’s crust is generally divided into older, thicker continental crust and younger, denser oceanic crust. The dynamic geology of Earth’s crust is informed by plate tectonics
mantle
A mantle is a layer inside a planetary body bounded below by a core and above by a crust. Mantles are made of rock or ices and are generally the largest and most massive layer of the planetary body
core
The core, found at the center of the Earth, is made up of two parts. The outer layer, comprised of liquid iron alloy, is about 1,355 miles thick
lithosphere
the outermost shell of a terrestrial-type planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time scales of thousands of years or greater
asthenosphere
The upper layer of the earth’s mantle, below the lithosphere, in which there is relatively low resistance to plastic flow and convection is thought to occur
tectonic plate
Plate tectonics is a scientific theory describing the large-scale motion of the plates making up Earth’s lithosphere since tectonic processes began on Earth between 3.3 and 3.5 billion years ago
chemical weathering
the erosion or disintegration of rocks, building materials, etc., caused by chemical reactions chiefly with water and substances dissolved in it rather than by mechanical processes
erosion
In earth science, erosion is the action of surface processes that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth’s crust, and then transports it to another location
