Geology or Related Geological Terms +

The ultimate gemstone, having few weaknesses and many strengths: It is well known that diamonds are the hardest substances found in nature, but few people realize that diamonds are four times harder than the next hardest natural mineral, corundum (sapphire and ruby).

Diamonds are usually utilized as gemstones and an abrasives, as well as in scientific uses.

The pressure that acts parallel to the Earth's surface: Diastrophic forces produce the folded and faulted geological structures seen in mountain areas.

In geology, folds (curvatures in layered rocks) are generally associated with sedimentary rocks, those that usually have horizontal layers.

Large-scale deformation of the earth's crust by natural processes: Diastrophism leads to the formation of continents and ocean basins, mountain systems and rift valleys, and other features by mechanisms such as lithospheric plate movement (plate tectonics), volcanic loading, or folding.

The study of diastrophism, or tectonic processes, is the central unifying principle in modern geology and geophysics.

1. A violent shaking of the Earth's crust: An earthquake can cause destruction to buildings and results from the sudden release of tectonic stress along a fault line or from volcanic activity.
2. Any event that causes an upheaval in society: The war in the Ukraine can definitely be called an earthquake because it certainly still causes so much destruction, a violent change in peoples lifes and so many deaths.

Predicting Earthquakes

Almost all earthquakes are insignificant. A small segment of a fault, far underground, jerks a little, but the rumble is imperceptible at the surface and not even noticed.

With a few quakes, the fault continues to break and the ground jumps significantly resulting in the earth shaking in cataclysms.

A gap in geological knowledge apparently makes earthquake predictions a frustrating and unreliable effort to calculate the true risk that human constructions like a water reservoir or a geothermal power plant could inadvertently set off a deadly quake.

Scientists know that some human activities from oil extraction to power plants can trigger an earthquake.

Geologists do not know how the pieces of the earth's crust that usually squeeze together tightly with high friction slip past each other smoothly during a large earthquake, as if sandpaper suddenly changed into Teflon."

A fracture in the Earth's crust where adjacent blocks of stone formations have shifted relative to one another: Faults can extend for hundreds of miles. Perhaps the most famous is the "San Andreas Fault", which is 600 miles long from the Mohave Desert to the Pacific Coast, north of San Francisco. It was the sudden shift of this fault that caused the San Francisco earthquake in 1906.

A well-known mineral prized for its glassy luster and rich variety of colors; a rare gemstone: Fluorite is used as a flux in iron smelting, a source of fluorine, as special optical lenses, and used as a popular mineral specimen.

A cCurvature in a layer of rocks: Folds generally found in rock formations that were originally horizontal and produced by stresses in the crust of the Earth.

The angle of deformation of folds ranges from very small to extremely contorted; their size ranges from a few inches to many miles.

When folded rocks erode, the result is a series of parallel ridges and valleys, such as those that can be observed in the Appalachian Mountains, the mountain range in the eastern United States that extends from Quebec, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico.

A German mineralogist, chemist, and geologist who originated the "Mohs scale of hardness: Carl Friedrich Christian Mohs was born on January 29, 1773 and died on September 29, 1839)".

The artificial manipulation of the environments of the Earth: Geoengineering is especially, involved in counteracting global warming.

Geoengineering considers proposals to deliberately manipulate the Earth's climate to counteract the effects of global warming from greenhouse gas emissions.

So far, no large-scale geoengineering projects have been undertaken, nor has a consensus been reached that geoengineering is desirable.

President Obama’s science adviser, Dr. John Holdren, after giving his first round of interviews (April 10, 2009) immediately caused a ruckus by airing his thoughts on geoengineering. The large-scale tinkering with the Earth’s climate to chill runaway global warming climate changes could potentially slow or reverse global warming.

Holdren emphasized that even if he personally thinks it prudent to start evaluating geoengineering options, he still believes that the most pressing concern should be curbing greenhouse gas emissions to prevent global warming from reaching catastrophic proportions.

The science of the Earth, its origin, composition, structure, and history: Geology is divided into such branches as: mineralogy (the minerals of the Earth), petrology (rocks), stratigraphy (the deposition of successive beds of sedimentary rocks), paleontology (fossils), and tectonics (the deformation and movement of the Earth's crust).

An expert who explains topographic features in terms of the Earth: Mr. Rock was a geomorphologist who knew everything about the geological processes of weathering, diastrophism (process or combination of processes by which the Earth's crust is deformed), and igneous activity, or volcanism.

The study of the surface features of the Earth, focusing largely on their origins and development: Geomorphology is closely related to physiography, which covers much of the same subject matter, but includes oceanography and climatology, the study of the Earth's climate and oceans.

Referring to energy which is generated from heat from inside the Earth: Geothermal energy is clean, sustainable, and renewable and the technology has caught on in countries with substantial geothermal activity, such as Iceland, where it accounted for 54 percent of primary energy use.

Resources of geothermal energy range from the shallow depths of hot water and hot rock found a few miles beneath the Earth's surface, and down even deeper to the extremely high temperatures of molten rock called magma.

In the United States, the best sources for geothermal power are in the west, where there are many underground lakes of heated water, however large-scale access would require drilling.

A major goal is to find a way to harness energy directly from magma (molten rock material), which has great potential because of its high temperature.

The perspective development and usage of the heat produced in the Earth as a sustainable source of energy for electricity, for heating, and for cooling for time to come: Geothermal future is working towards a successful result in providing an eco-friendly supply of energy for time to come. Most people think the word "geothermal" means hot springs and geysers; such as, parts of Iceland or Yellowstone National Park where water is heated by the presence of magma near the surface of the earth.

The Earth’s heat lies below the surface everywhere, and it is believed that it offers an untapped energy reserve of enormous potential with a very short list of drawbacks.

Some of the negative aspects of geothermal development is that it will mean more competition for scarce water, more holes in the ground, and more roads to service those holes.

A heat apparatus or pump in which the refrigerant exchanges heat (in a heat exchanger): A geothermal heat pump uses a fluid circulating through an earth-connection medium (ground or ground water).

The fluid is contained in a variety of loops (pipe) configurations depending on the temperature of the ground and the ground area available.

Loops may be installed horizontally or vertically in the ground or submersed in a body of water.