Terminology Guide — printable binder packet

Bright Minds Geology · Course Pack

Terminology Guide — The Construction Kit

Reference

v0.1 · Page 1 of 2

Geology vocabulary is not a random pile of words to be hauled into memory one at a time — it is a construction kit. Nearly every technical term is built from a small set of Greek and Latin parts snapped together. Know that meta- means change and -morph means form, and metamorphic announces itself — rock whose form was changed. Memorizing words is linear; learning roots is exponential — thirty parts unlock several hundred words.

The habit that scales

Keep a running roots-and-symbols page at the back of the lab notebook; add to it every time a new prefix, suffix, or map or mineral symbol appears. When you hit an unfamiliar term, break it apart out loud and guess the meaning before you look it up — that retrieval is what fixes the part in memory.

The core roots

Part	Meaning	Example & what it tells you
litho-	rock, stone	lithosphere — the rigid outer shell broken into plates.
minera- (Latin)	ore, mine	mineral — a naturally occurring, inorganic, crystalline solid.
crystallo- / crystal-	lattice, clear solid	crystal habit — a mineral’s ordered outward form.
igne- / igni-	fire	igneous — rock frozen from magma or lava.
sedi- / sed-	to settle	sedimentary — settled particles, pressed and cemented.
meta-	change, beyond	metamorphic — recrystallized by heat and pressure.
-morph / morpho-	form, shape	foliation — the banded fabric metamorphism imposes.
clast-	broken	clastic sediment — older rock’s cemented debris.
strat-	layer	strata — youngest on top where undisturbed (superposition).
felsic / mafic	silica-rich / iron-rich	the igneous ends — pale felsic vs. dark mafic rock.
oro-	mountain	orogeny — the mountain-building that collisions drive.

Terminology Guide · continued

Core Roots, Continued & Unit Clusters

Reference

v0.1 · Page 2 of 2

Part	Meaning	Example & what it tells you
seismo-	shaking	seismic P/S waves map the interior; the S-wave shadow zone proves the liquid outer core.
epi-	upon, above	epicenter — the surface point above a quake’s focus.
sub- / -duction	under / to carry	subduction — a plate carried down into the mantle.
di- / dis-	apart	divergent — plates pull apart; new crust forms.
con-	together	convergent — plates collide; the engine of orogeny.
trans-	across	transform — plates grind past; elastic rebound releases the strain.
chrono- / -chron	time	geochronology — radiometric dating reads decay by its half-life.
proto-	first, original	protolith — the parent rock before metamorphism.
uniform-	same, unchanging	uniformitarianism — the present is the key to the past (Hutton).

High-value clusters by unit

Minerals & mineral ID — minera-, crystallo-. Streak, luster, Mohs hardness, cleavage vs. fracture, crystal habit, specific gravity, and the dilute-acid carbonate test — not color.
The three rock families & the rock cycle — igne-, sedi-, meta-. Magma vs. lava, felsic vs. mafic, Bowen’s reaction series, clastic/chemical/organic, protolith, foliation — all place a sample in the rock cycle.
Plate tectonics & the interior — di-/con-/trans-, sub-/-duction, oro-, seismo-/epi-. The three boundaries, subduction, orogeny, P/S/surface waves, epicenter, elastic rebound — and the S-wave shadow zone.
Surface processes & deep time — strat-, chrono-, proto-, uniform-. Weathering, erosion, deposition, karst; superposition, original horizontality, cross-cutting, unconformity; relative vs. radiometric dating, half-life, the geologic time scale, deep time.

How to actually use this

Don’t swallow the table in one sitting. Keep this page open during reading and lab; each time you meet an unfamiliar term, name the parts, guess the meaning, then check. The habit leaves your effort free for the part of geology that actually rewards it — reading the rock, the outcrop, and the map.