Glossary

accretion
A theory of continental growth by the addition of successive geosynclines to the craton.
allocthon
A mass of rock that has been moved a long distance from its place of origin, commonly by a tectonic process such as overthrusting.
Archean
Said of the rocks of the Archeozoic.
Archeozoic
The earlier part of two great divisions of the Precambrian time.
autochthon
A body of rocks that remains at its site of origin, where it is rooted to its basement. Rocks of an autochthon may be mildly to considerably deformed.
craton
A part of the earth's crust that has attained stability and has been little deformed for a long time. The term is restricted to continents.
cross-section
A diagram showing the features transected by a vertical plane, e.g. a vertical section through an orebody, an anticline, or a fossil.
diorite
A groupe of plutonic rocks intermediate in composition between acidic and basic, characteristically composed of hornblende, oligoclase, or andesine, pyroxene, and sometimes a little quartz.
footwall
The mass of rock beneath a fault.
ductile
Said of a rock that is able to sustain, unde a given set of condition, 5-10% deformation before fracturing or faulting.
foreland
A stable area marginal to an orogenic belt, toward which the rocks of the belt were thrust or overfolded. Generally the foreland is a continental part of the crust, and is the edge of the craton or platform area.
geochronology
Study of time in relationship to the history of the Earth, esp. by the absolute age determination and relative dating systems developed for this purpose.
geophone
A seismic detector, placed on or in the ground, that responds to ground motion at its point of location.
granite
Broadly applied,any quartz-bearing plutonic rock composed entirely of crystals, i.e. having no glassy part.
greenstone
A field term for any compact dark-green altered or metamorphosed basic igneous rock that owes its color to chlorite, actinolite, or epidote.
Grenville orogen
A name that is widely used for a major plutonic, metamorphic, and deformational event during the Precambrian which affected a broad province along the southeastern border of the Canadian Shield.
Grenville province
A series of the Precambrian of Canada and New York.
impricate
Overlapping, as shingles or tiles on a roof.
klippe
An isolated rock unit that is an erosional remnant or outlier nof a nappe.
LITHOPROBE
A Canadian national Earth science research project to investigate the 3-dimensional structural evolution of Canada's landmass and continental margins. Research is conducted in a coordinated, integrated, multidisciplinary fashion, with seismic techniques spearheading the research. The LITHOPROBE Home Page.
lithosphere
A layer of strength relative to the underlying asthenosphere. It includes the crust and part of the upper mantle and is of the order of 100 km in thickness.
mafic
Said of an igneous rock composed chiefly of one or more ferromagnesian, dark-colored minerals in its mode; also said of those minerals.
metamorphism
The mineralogical, chemical, and structural adjustment of solid rocks to physical and chemical conditions imposed at depth below the surface zones of weathering and cementation, whcih differs from the conditions under which the rocks originated.
metamorphic grade
The intensity of metamorphism, measured by the degree of difference between the parent rock and the metamorphic rock.
meteorite
Any solid object from interplanetary space that has fallen to the earth's surface without being vaporized during its passage through the atmosphere.
Mohorovicic discontinuity
The boundary surface or sharp seismic-velocity discontinuity that separates the Earth's crust from the subjacent mantle. It marks the level in the Earth at which the P-wave velocities change abruptly from 6.7-7.2 km/sec to 7.6-8.6 km/sec on average.
para-autochthon
Said of a rock unit that is intermediate in tectonic character between autochthon and allocthon.
parautochthonous
Said of a rock unit that is intermediate in tectonic character between autochthonous and allochthonous.
plutonic
Pertaining to rocks formed by any process at great depth.
orogenic belt
A linear or arcuate region that has been subjected to folding and other deformation during an orogenic cycle. Orogenic belts are mobile belts during their formative stages, and most of them later became mountain belts by postorogenic processes.
plate tectonics
A theory in which the surface of the Earth is made up of a number of rigid plates moving relative to each other, separating at mid-oceanic ridges where new ocean-floor is produced and converging at subduction zones, where one plate descends beneath another,
Proterozoic
The more recent of two great divisions of the Precambrian.
Precambrian
All geologic time, and its corresponding rocks, before the beginning of the Paleozoic; it is equivalent to about 90% of geologic time.
radiometric dating
Calculating an age in years for geologic materials by measuring the presence of a radioactive element; based on nuclear decay of naturally occurring radioactive isotopes.
seismic
Pertaining to an earth vibration, including those that are artificially induced.
seismic record
In geophysical exploration, a photographic or magnetic record of reflected or refracted seismic waves.
shear zone
A tabular zone of rock that as been crushed and brecciated by many parallel fractures due to shear strain. Such an area is often mineralized by ore-forming solutions.
tectonics
A branch of geology dealing with the broad architecture of the outer part of the earth, that is, the major structural or deformational features and their relations, origin, and historical evolution. It is closely related to structural geology, but tectonics generally deals with larger features.
tonalite
A group of plutonic rocks having the composition of diorite but with an appreciable amount of quartz, i.e. between 5 and 20 percent.
underthrust
A thrust fault in which the footwall was the active element.

Questions or comments? (Litho@stoner.eps.mcgill.ca)