Birth of the Appalachians

These flashcards cover key vocabulary and concepts from the 'Birth of the Appalachians' lecture, focusing on geological events, processes, and significant terms related to paleoclimate and mountain formation.

Snowball Earth

A term referring to periods when the Earth was covered in ice from the poles to the tropics.

Phanerozoic Eon

A geological time scale division that includes the current period, marked by the emergence of abundant animal life.

Oxygen isotopes

Isotopes of oxygen used to infer past climate conditions based on their ratios in geological samples.

Taconic Orogeny

A mountain-building event that occurred about 480-440 million years ago, resulting in the formation of the Appalachian Mountains.

Thrust faults

Faults that occur when crustal slices slide up ramps due to compression, contributing to mountain building.

Terrane

A fault-bounded block of crust that is distinct from its neighbors and has been sutured to a continent by tectonic processes.

Anomalocaris

A predator trilobite that was abundant in the Cambrian Period.

Biomineralization

The process by which living organisms use dissolved minerals to create hard structures, like shells and bones.

Passive continental margin

A continental margin that is not close to a tectonic plate boundary and typically features clastic sedimentary deposits.

Active continental margin

A continental margin that is close to a tectonic plate boundary, characterized by tectonic activity such as subduction.