Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Deposition is the geological process in which sediments, soil and rocks are added to a landform or landmass. Wind, ice, water, and gravity transport previously weathered surface material, which, at the loss of enough kinetic energy in the fluid, is deposited, building up layers of sediment.
Tectonic uplift is the geologic uplift of Earth's surface that is attributed to plate tectonics. While isostatic response is important, an increase in the mean elevation of a region can only occur in response to tectonic processes of crustal thickening (such as mountain building events), changes in the density distribution of the crust and ...
By the end of the 19th Century it was generally accepted that the cause of folding and faults was lateral compression that resulted from a shrinking Earth caused by its gradual cooling. [3] In the late 19th Century, Eduard Suess proposed his eustatic theory that provided the underpinnings for Chamberlin's explanation of diastrophism.
Tectonophysics is concerned with movements in the Earth's crust and deformations over scales from meters to thousands of kilometers. [2] These govern processes on local and regional scales and at structural boundaries, such as the destruction of continental crust (e.g. gravitational instability) and oceanic crust (e.g. subduction), convection in the Earth's mantle (availability of melts), the ...
Tension, however, accounts for most of the "opposite directions" pull on the plates. As the separating oceanic crust cools over time, it becomes more dense and sinks farther and farther away from the ridge axis. The cooling and sinking ocean crust causes a tensile stress that also helps drive the pulling apart of the plates at the ridge axis.
Sedimentary rocks cover up to 75% of the Earth's surface, record much of the Earth's history, and harbor the fossil record. Sedimentology is closely linked to stratigraphy , the study of the physical and temporal relationships between rock layers or strata .
Surface tension is an important factor in the phenomenon of capillarity. Surface tension has the dimension of force per unit length, or of energy per unit area. [4] The two are equivalent, but when referring to energy per unit of area, it is common to use the term surface energy, which is a more general term in the sense that it applies also to ...
The slab affects the convection and evolution of the Earth's mantle due to the insertion of the hydrous oceanic lithosphere. [3] Dense oceanic lithosphere retreats into the Earth's mantle, while lightweight continental lithospheric material produces active continental margins and volcanic arcs, generating volcanism. [4]