earth movement
Plates sliding beneath
Earth movement refers to any shifting, displacement, or deformation of the ground—whether sudden like earthquakes and landslides, or gradual like soil creep and tectonic drift.
The term appears in geology, construction, and insurance contexts: The policy excludes damage from earth movement.
In excavation, earth movement means the physical relocating of soil and rock: The project required massive earth movement before foundations could be laid.
- seismologyStudy of ground tremors
- ground shakingEarth's surface vibrating
- landslidesMasses of earth falling
- excavationAct of unearthing
- heavy machineryLarge powered industrial apparatus
tectonics · erosion · soil erosion · folding · mining · uplift · shifting ground · faulting · earthquakes · tectonic plates · subsidence · road building · sedimentation · continental drift · dam construction · volcanic activity · tunneling · quarrying
- exclusionsexclude, exclusion, excluding, except, exception
- geohazardslandslides, rockslide, mudslide, mudflow, subsidence
- seismic activityearthquake, quake, tremor, aftershock, foreshock
- mine subsidencecave-ins, sinkholes, surface cracks
earth movementimmobility
Lack of motion
stasis · stillness · dormancy · equilibrium · solid ground
earth movementwater erosion
Land worn by flowing liquid
wind erosion · weathering · chemical weathering · dissolution · denudation
earth, movement, earthy, earthen, earthly, unearthly, earthling, earthbound, earths