| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Earthquake | A movement or trembling of the ground that is caused by a sudden release of energy when rocks along a fault move. |
| Elastic reboud | The elastic rebound theory is an explanation for how energy is spread during earthquakes. |
| epicenter | the point on the earth's surface vertically above the focus of an earthquake. |
| deformation | the action or process of changing in shape or distorting, especially through the application of pressure. |
| Focus | The location within earths along a fault at which the first motion of an earthquake occurs. |
| tectonic plate boundaries | There are three kinds of plate tectonic boundaries: divergent, convergent, and transform plate boundaries. |
| fault | A breake in a body of rock along which one block moves relative to another. |
| Volcano | A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. |
| Magma | hot fluid or semifluid material below or within the earth's crust from which lava and other igneous rock is formed by cooling. |
| lava | hot molten or semifluid rock erupted from a volcano or fissure, or solid rock resulting from cooling of this. |
| Vent | An opening at the serface of the earth trough which volcanic material passes. |
| tectonic plate | The lithosphere, which is the rigid outermost shell of a planet (the crust and upper mantle), is broken up into tectonic plates. |
| hot spot | a volcanic active area of earths surface commonly far froma tectonic plate boundery |
