Earth Science

• Earthquakes: rapid motion or trembling of the ground when rocks in the Earth’s interior break or slide past each other due to sudden, unexpected release of stored elastic energy in the rocks
• Focus/Hypocenter: site along the rupturing fault where earthquakes and waves originate
• Epicenter: position of the Earth’s surface directly above the focus
• Depth: distance between focus and the earth’s surface
• Seismic Waves: vibrations caused by moving rocks
• Body Waves: transverse through the earth’s interior; faster and higher frequency
• Surface Waves: transverse only through the earth’s surface; responsible for most of an earthquake’s damage
• Seismograph: equipment to record/measure how strong an earthquake is
• Igneous rocks: formed from hardened magma and lava
• Sedimentary rocks: particles of other rocks that have been weathered and eroded
• Metamorphic rocks: undergo changes due to heat and pressure
• Weathering: is a term for all processes which combine to cause the disintegration and chemical alteration of rocks at or near earth's surface.
• Erosion: includes all the processes of loosening, removal, and transportation which tend to wear away the earth’s surface.
• Lithification is the conversion of unconsolidated sediment into solid rock.
• Primary Waves (P waves): faster and compressional/longitudinal (motion of particles is parallel to the direction of the wave); can move in solids and liquids
• Secondary Waves (S waves): longitudinal wave, stretched and compressed
• Uniformitarianism: the processes that shaped the earth
• Divergent are where the plates move away from each other
• Convergent where the plates move tears each other
• Transform: slides past each other
• Plate tectonics: the earth’s crust is broken into plates which can move
• Richter scale rate the magnitude
• Magnitude measure the strength of an earthquake
• Intensity the amount of damage
• Hygromenter measures the humidity
• Barmeter measure air pressure