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| The gaseous mass or envelope surrounding a celestial body, especially the one surrounding the earth, and retained by the celestial body's gravitational field |
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| The waters of the earth's surface as distinguished from those of the lithosphere and the atmosphere |
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| The outer part of the earth, consisting of the crust and upper mantle, approximately 100 km (62 mi.) thick. |
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| The part of the earth and its atmosphere in which living organisms exist or that is capable of supporting life. |
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| A submerged border of a continent that slopes gradually and extends to a point of steeper descent to the ocean bottom. |
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| Any of the four planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, or Mars, that are nearest the sun and have similar size and density. |
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| Any of numerous small celestial bodies that revolve around the sun, with orbits lying chiefly between Mars and Jupiter and characteristic diameters between a few and several hundred kilometers. Also called minor planet, planetoid |
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| A celestial body, observed only in that part of its orbit that is relatively close to the sun, having a head consisting of a solid nucleus surrounded by a nebulous coma up to 2.4 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) in diameter and an elongated curved vapor tail arising from the coma when sufficiently close to the sun. Comets are thought to consist chiefly of ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide, and water. |
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| A solid body, moving in space, that is smaller than an asteroid and at least as large as a speck of dust. |
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| An ornamental facing around a fireplace. Also called mantelpiece. |
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| movement, formation, or re-formation of continents described by the theory of plate tectonics. |
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| A mixture of finely divided solids with enough liquid to produce a pasty mass. |
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| A theory that explains the global distribution of geological phenomena such as seismicity, volcanism, continental drift, and mountain building in terms of the formation, destruction, movement, and interaction of the earth's lithosphere plates. |
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| A geologic process in which one edge of one crustal plate is forced below the edge of another. |
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| Growth or increase in size by gradual external addition, fusion, or inclusion. |
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| To open to a fuller extent or width |
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| fracture in the continuity of a rock formation caused by a shifting or dislodging of the earth's crust, in which adjacent surfaces are displaced relative to one another and parallel to the plane of fracture. Also called shift. |
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| he state of the atmosphere at a given time and place, with respect to variables such as temperature, moisture, wind velocity, and barometric pressure |
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| The process of eroding or the condition of being eroded |
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