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Glossary

Welcome to the glossary at GeologyRocks. We've put together some of the common terms used in the Earth Sciences to help you if you come across a term you've never seen before. To navigate, click a letter or a category from the list on the left to see all the words starting with that letter or in that category. Alternatively, you can search for a word using the search box to the left. If you search for a word that isn't in our database, we will try and put in a definition as soon as we can.

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Here is an example word:

Mantle

The layer beneath the crust, but above the core in the interior of the Earth. It's composition is broadly that of ultrabasic rocks.

In the mantle, temperatures range between 500°C-900°C at the upper boundary with the crust to over 4,000°C at the boundary with the core. Although the higher temperatures far exceed the melting points of the mantle rocks at the surface (about 1200°C for representative peridotite), the mantle is almost exclusively solid. The enormous lithostatic pressure exerted on the mantle prevents melting, because the temperature at which melting begins (the solidus) increases with pressure.

The internal structure of the earth