| Term | Definition |
| Geohazard | Geological occurrences where land falls, moves, or shifts |
| Subduction | When denser plates sink under less dense plates |
| Shearing | The shifting of two plates or rocks against one another |
| Ridge push | When lava hardens and pushes away old crust |
| Transform boundary | When two plates rub against each other in opposite directions; forms faults and causes earthquakes |
| Strike-slip fault | Shearing causes horizontal movement along fault |
| Lava | Magma that's exited the earth's crust |
| Seafloor Spreading | When lava in the ocean hardens and forms a rock at a mid ocean ridge and pushes older crust back |
| Theory of Continental Drift | The theory that the continents are slowly drifting apart |
| Divergent boundary | When two plates are pulled apart/pushed apart and form ridges or rift valleys |
| Convergent boundary | When two plates push together in the same direction; often forms volcanic mountains |
| Slab pull | When old and colder plates are pulled under newer ones |
| Hot Spot | Hot areas on Earth's surface where plumes of mantle rise to the surface |
| Pangaea | Theory that the continents were once whole called a supercontinent |
| Epicenter | Point directly above the focus of an earthquake |
| Mafic | Igneous rocks with lots of magnesium and iron |
| Asthenosphere | The lower part of the crust and upper part of the mantle |
| Tectonic Plate | Giant irregularly shaped slab of solid rock |
| Focus | The point of the first rupture of a fault during an earthquake |
| Tension | Stress that pulls rocks in two separate directions |
| Normal Fault | Tension causes plates to slip horizontally downward |
| Magma | Molten rock and minerals in earth's crust |
| Felsic | Igneous rocks with many elements that form feldspar and etc, |
| Mantle convection | The circulation of warm less dense material and cold dense material |
| Reverse Fault | Compression forces plates to move in opposite directions (upward) |
| Compression | Stress that's aimed to the center of a rock mass |
