Exploring Earth's Forces: Erosion, Faulting & Fossils

1. Week 5 Vocabulary

2. Erosion • The slow movement of weathered rock and soil from one place to another caused by water, wind, gravity, or glaciers

3. Faulting • A fracture in the continuity of a rock formation caused by a shifting or dislodging of the Earth’s crust

4. Fossil • Imprinted remains of a plant or animal in sedimentary rock that give us clues to the Earth’s past

5. Geological Time • The history of the Earth as determined by radioactive dating, rock sequences, and fossils

6. Gravity • Force of attraction that keeps planets in orbit and our feet on the ground • Mass and distance determine the force of gravity

7. Lithosphere • Thin outer shell of Earth consisting of the crust and the rigid upper mantle

8. Lithospheric Plates • Separate pieces of the lithosphere that move very slowly due to the motion of the mantle

9. Mantle • Layer of rock below the Earth’s crust

10. Moon Phases • Repeating pattern of the different moon shapes you see due to the moon’s movement around the Earth

11. Rotation • Spinning of the Earth on its axis