IELTS Vocabulary Flashcard

The noun "accumulation" is the act of accumulating (or gathering something over time). You might see this word in geology lectures.  

Example sentences:

• Accumulations of sand can be formed by the action of waves on coastal beaches.
• The formation of glacier is an accumulation of snow that lasts for more than a year. 
• The accumulation of gas continues for several million years although planets like Jupiter- and Saturn-are considered to have accumulated their mass over only 10,000 years.
• Sedimentary rocks are formed by the accumulation of sediment.
• If you keep putting money in the bank, the amount you have is the accumulation of your savings. 

Definition: A deposit of clay, silt, and sand left by flowing floodwater in a river valley or delta, typically producing fertile soil

Example sentences:

• In the east, which is lower and flatter, river gravels and alluvium from the North Sea have produced dark, rich soils. Above these sedimentary rocks is a sequence of interbedded alluvial floodplain deposits and palaeosols.

Definition: Relating to high mountains

Example sentences:

• The hikers start in tropical rainforest territory and travel through moorlands, alpine meadows and glaciers on the summit

A body of permeable rock which can contain or transmit groundwater.

Definition: A mass of snow, ice, and rocks falling rapidly down a mountainside

Example senences:

• Only on a mountain can you experience avalanches of snow or rock.

Definition: A large volcanic crater, typically one formed by a major eruption leading to the collapse of the mouth of the volcano.

Example senences:

• The sequential development of multiple summit calderas of shield volcanoes gives clues about how the spatial location of shallow magma chambers evolves with time and how the magma supply into these chambers evolves

Definition: A deep gorge, typically one with a river flowing through it.

Example senences:

• The most familiar type of canyon is probably the river canyon. The water pressure of a river can cut deep into a river bed.

Definition: The nature of something’s ingredients or constituents; the way in which a whole or mixture is made up

Example senences:

• The sensitive camera will be able to precisely measure the planet's temperature and chemical composition, which will allow for computer models of the atmosphere and climate to become much more exact.

Definition: Coming closer together; converging

Example senences:

• The volcanically active trail-ends are preferentially located near divergent plate boundaries and are rare near convergent boundaries.

Definition: A deep open crack, especially one in a glacier.

Example sentences:

• On good days they could travel no more than 15 miles, and they had to be ever vigilant of the deep crevasses opening up beneath their feet when the snow melted.

Definition: A narrow opening or fissure, especially in a rock or wall

Example sentences:

• Many creatures hide in crevices in the rock.

The Earth's crust is its outer layer. Example sentence:

• The continental crust is thought to have originated from the movement of magma when plate tectonics first formed billions of years ago.
• The Earth consists of three main layers: the core, or the inner layer; the mantle, in the middle; and the crust, which includes the continents and ocean floor. 

A crust is a hard layer of something, especially on top of a softeror wetter substance. Example sentence:

• As the water evaporates, a crust of salt is left on the surface of the soil. 

Definition: Adjective (crust)

Example sentences:

• Throughout the world, most of the earthquake activities are confined to plate margin associated with crustal deformation.
• Glaciation and crustal activity have given the island its unique shape.
• At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is a daisy chain of volcanoes, faults and crustal fractures.

Definition: Having the structure and form of a crystal; composed of crystals

Example sentences:

• This crystalline structure is an orderly arrangement of ions known as a crystal lattice.

Definition: The action of depositing something

Example senences:

• These chemicals prevented normal calcium deposition during eggshell formation, and caused females to lay thin-shelled eggs that often broke before hatching. Pebbles formed by the deposition of calcium in solution.

Definition: The process by which fertile land becomes desert, typically as a result of drought, deforestation, or inappropriate agriculture

Example senences:

• The problems are global - poverty, air and water pollution, deforestation, desertification, overfishing, climate change - no country can confront these challenges alone.

Definition: Tending to be different or develop in different directions

Example senences:

• The virtues sought in a deputy are sometimes quite divergent from those sought in a leader.

Definition: a mound of sand formed by the wind, usually along the beach or in a desert

Example sentences:

• Every dune has a windward side and a slip face.

Definition: Force or throw (something) out in a violent or sudden way

Example sentences:

• Lumps of viscous lava were ejected from the volcano

If rock or soil erodes or we can say rock or soil is eroded by the weather, sea, or wind, the rock or soil cracks and breaks so that it is gradually destroyed. Here are example sentences:

• As rain falls through the atmosphere, it picks up CO2 which make rainwater become acidic. As it drains into fractures in the rock, the water begins to erode the rock creating a network of passages
• Once exposed, soil is quickly eroded by wind and rain.
• The shoreline has eroded badly.
• The shoreline was badly eroded by last winter's storms.

Erosion is the process or the act of eroding. 

Let's learn the verb "erode" first.

If rock or soil erodes or we can say rock or soil is eroded by the weather, sea, or wind, the rock or soil cracks and breaks so that it is gradually destroyed. Here are example sentences:

• As rain falls through the atmosphere, it picks up CO2 which make rainwater become acidic. As it drains into fractures in the rock, the water begins to erode the rock creating a network of passages
• Once exposed, soil is quickly eroded by wind and rain.
• The shoreline has eroded badly.
• The shoreline was badly eroded by last winter's storms.

Okay! Now let's look at example sentences using the noun "erosion".

• Trees prevent soil erosion by soaking up water in areas with high rainfall
• Centuries of erosion by wind have carved grooves in the rocks.
• Weathering and erosion contribute to the formation of canyon.
• Soil erosion is partially caused by rain runoff washing away the soil.

Definition: Be ejected from

Example senences:

• Possible evidence for this theory concerns the brown ridges that mark the moon's terrain, thought to be caused by instant freezing of liquid water erupting from beneath the ice crust.

Definition: An act or instance of erupting

Example senences:

• Most of Mars' surface was shaped later by meteorite impacts, volcanic eruptions and erosion by dust and wind. This record has been obscured on the Earth by billions of years of rain, wind, erosion, volcanic eruptions, mountain building, and plate tectonics.

Definition: A long, steep slope, especially one at the edge of a plateau or separating areas of land at different heights.

Example sentences:

• Perhaps the most striking feature is the steep escarpment that characterizes the northwest-facing edge of the Cotswold Hills

Definition: (Of a rock formation) be broken by a fault or faults

Example sentences:

• Faulting occurs when there is stress on the crust of the earth and layers of layers of rocks fold causing a fault or break in the rock.

Definition: An extended break in a rock formation, marked by the relative displacement and discontinuity of strata on either side of a particular plane

Example sentences:

• Iranian leaders have promised to rebuild the town, which is on a major earthquake fault line. Most transform faults are found on the ocean floor.

Definition: Adjective (geology)

Example senences:

• There is no stratigraphic or other geological evidence here for a break between the two volcanic episodes

Definition:

Example sentences:

• The inner ear's structure and contents is thought to permit the shark to determine and distinguish sounds and the geomagnetic fields of the earth's magma.

Definition: Relating to or produced by the internal heat of the earth

Example sentences:

• Some 70 per cent of Iceland’s energy needs are met from geothermal sources. These rocks were later affected by low-grade metamorphism under high geothermal gradients

Definition: A hot spring in which water intermittently boils, sending a tall column of water and steam into the air.

Example senences:

• A geyser of lava spouted between them and Seth attacked, charging through the lava like it was water, an unstoppable locomotive of power.

Definition: The process, condition, or result of being covered by glaciers or ice sheets.

Example sentences:

• These hydrogeological conditions are controlled by relative land and sea level, erosion and deposition, the cold climate processes of permafrost and glaciation, and rock stress changes.

Definition: A slowly moving mass or river of ice formed by the accumulation and compaction of snow on mountains or near the poles.

Example sentences:

• A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation (melting and sublimation) over many years, often centuries. Glaciers slowly deform and flow due to stresses induced by their weight, creating crevasses, seracs, and other distinguishing features. They also abrade rock and debris from their substrate to create landforms such as cirques and moraines. Glaciers form only on land and are distinct from the much thinner sea ice and lake ice that form on the surface of bodies of water.

Definition: (Of rock) having solidified from lava or magma

Example senences:

• The occurrence of these felsic extrusive igneous rocks potentially provides key information on the complex interplay of magmatism and tectonics.

Definition: Landscape underlain by limestone that has been eroded by dissolution, producing ridges, towers, fissures, sinkholes, and other characteristic landforms.

Example senences:

• The underlying limestone karst topography allows water to flow in abundant underground rivers, feeding the numerous springs, which flow into the many creeks and streams.

Definition: A continent or other large body of land.

Example sentences:

• This stress was to lead to the break-up of the land mass, first appearing in the vicinity of the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean

Definition: The sliding down of a mass of earth or rock from a mountain or cliff.

Example senences:

• Flooding caused bridges to collapse and landslides are blocking roads to devastated coastal villages.

Definition: Hot molten or semifluid rock erupted from a volcano or fissure, or solid rock resulting from cooling of this.

Example senences:

• The tuffs and lava were derived from a nearby andesitic volcanic centre

Definition: Hot fluid or semi-fluid material below or within the earth’s crust from which lava and other igneous rock is formed on cooling

Example senences:

• What they do know is that a ‘slow rise’ of magma is driving lava to the surface, which has created a new lava dome in the mountain's crater.

Definition: The region of the earth’s interior between the crust and the core, believed to consist of hot, dense silicate rocks

Example senences:

• Hot new ocean crust forms at mid-ocean ridges, cools, and sinks back into the mantle, shedding heat and driving the plates.

Definition: An area of low-lying land that is flooded in wet seasons or at high tide, and typically remains waterlogged at all times.

Example senences:

• The Romans became practised at draining marshes to rid areas of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

Definition: A substance obtained by mining:A solid, naturally occurring inorganic substance

Example sentences:

• Three blue-chip companies have also taken a gamble and invested in a total of over eight million acres in the hope of mining platinum and other minerals at some future date.
• The solids used include natural clays and minerals, metal oxides and sulfides, metal salts, and mixed metal oxides.

Definition: (Especially of materials with a high melting point, such as metal and glass) liquefied by heat.

Example senences:

• A spectacular form of heat advection occurs when molten rock, or magma, erupts from a volcano. Solidification of the molten material into rocks happened as the Earth cooled.

If a substance is permeable, something such as water or gas can pass through it or soak into it. For example:

• A number of products have been developed which are permeable to air and water.
• An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing rock. Water-bearing rocks are permeable and porous, meaning that they have openings that liquids and gases can pass through.

Definition: An area of relatively level high ground

Example senences:

• This soil region is in the foothills of the Appalachian plateau, and topography ranges from nearly level to extremely steep.

Something that is porous has many small holes in it, which water and air can pass through. For example:

• The local limestone is very porous.

To recede means to pull back, retreat, or become faint or distant. Flood waters recede, as do glaciers.

Example sentences:

• Between ice ages there were warmer interglacial periods when glaciers receded. 

When something such as a quality, problem, or illness recedes, it becomes weaker, smaller, or less intense. For example:

• Just as I started to think that I was never going to get well, the illness began to recede.

Definition: The draining away of water (or substances carried in it) from the surface of an area of land, a building or structure, etc.

Example senences:

• Over time, fertilizer run-off from agriculture, for example, may load the lake with excess nutrients.

Sediment is solid material that settles at the bottom of a liquid, especially earth and pieces of rock that have been carried along and then left somewhere by water, ice, or wind.

Definition: Relating to sediment;(Of rock) that has formed from sediment deposited by water or air

Example sentences:

• (Of rock) that has formed from sediment deposited by water or air: The present juxtaposition of the two sedimentary basins may have resulted from two separate events. Rifts typically also exhibit characteristic seismic and volcanic features, and contain thick sedimentary deposits.

Definition: Inclined from a horizontal or vertical line

Example sentences:

• The new terminal has been designed on three levels, taking advantage of the sloping terrain.

If something submerges, it goes below the surface of some water or another liquid. For example:

• The intertidal zone in marine aquatic environments is the area of the foreshore and seabed that is exposed to the air at low tide and submerged at high tide.
• A convergent plate boundary is where one of the tectonic plates submerge under the other.​
• Hippos are unable to submerge in the few remaining water holes. 

If something submerges, it goes below the surface of some water or another liquid. For example:

• The intertidal zone in marine aquatic environments is the area of the foreshore and seabed that is exposed to the air at low tide and submerged at high tide.
• A convergent plate boundary is where one of the tectonic plates submerge under the other.​
• Hippos are unable to submerge in the few remaining water holes. 

Definition: Of or relating to the structure of the earth’s crust and the large-scale processes that take place within it.

Example sentences:

• In this paper, we discuss the tectonic settings and magmatic processes which allow these magmas to reach the surface

Definition: (Especially of a layer of rock or soil) lie or be situated under (something):

Example senences:

• Steep slopes underlain by stony soils form appealing vineyard sites, but they can be susceptible to rapid soil erosion during storms. Limestone underlies much of the site.

Definition: Relating to or produced by a volcano or volcanoes.

Example sentences:

• More than 80 Vesuvius eruptions were listed in a recent worldwide directory of volcanic activity.

Weathering is the breaking down or dissolving of rocks and minerals on Earth’s surface. Water, ice, acids, salt, and changes in temperature are all agents of weathering.