Many have looked at a rock and wondered how it came to be. Well, the history of rocks begun about 4.5 billion years ago, when dust and gas combined to form the very rocks that make up our beautiful planet. Rocks are the stuff of stars since they were created from elements harnessed far of…
In geology, a fault is a discontinuity that is formed by fracture in the surface rocks of the Earth (up to 200 km deep) when tectonic forces exceed the resistance of the rocks. In other words, a fault is a crack in the Earth’s crust. The rupture zone has a generally well defined surface called the fault…
Rocks ordinarily lie everywhere on the ground of the earth. They constitute most of the landforms, as we often notice. For instance, rocks make up the mountains and most of the non-water portions of the earth’s surface. A rock is hence defined as a solid naturally occurring mass or lumps of consolidated mineral matter that…
Landforms are the natural properties and shapes prevalent on the earth’s surface. These basically consist of the solid parts of the planet which start from the mountains and end in the ridges in the ocean. That means, everything in between are different types of landforms. With diverse physical characteristics, landforms are spread throughout the planet….
The earth is technically the 3rd planet from the sun between Venus and Mars and has an equatorial diameter of 12,755 kilometers (7926 miles) and a polar diameter of 149.6 million kilometers (92.9 million miles). The earth is in a constant state of motion as it revolves round the sun, which takes a period of…
Plate tectonics defines the movements and features of the Earth’s surface now and in the past. The theory of plate tectonics was advanced in the 1960s and 1970s to generate new information about the Earth’s ancient magnetism, the nature of the ocean floor, the flow of heat from the Earth’s interior, and earthquake and volcanic…
Igneous rocks form from the cooling of magma – molten materials in the earth’s crust. The terminology Igneous means fire or heat. In this sense, igneous rocks are formed when molten rock (magma) solidifies either underneath the earth’s crust to form plutonic (intrusive) igneous rocks or on the surface of the earth to form volcanic…
A volcano is a fissure – opening or vent – in the earth’s crust through which molten rocks and gases erupt. The molten rocks can be in the form of mixture of hot gases, ash, lava, or other extremely hot substances within the earth’s crust. A volcano looks like a huge heap of soil or…
Earthquake refers to a sudden violent shaking and vibration of the earth surface resulting from underground movement along a fault plane or from volcanic activity. Earthquakes can cause serious destruction to property, injury to people and even kills. It happens when there is sudden movement or breaking of the tectonic plates. Tectonic plates are huge…