DIASTROPHISM

also called Tectonism, large-scale deformation of the Earth's crust by natural processes, which leads to the formation of continents and ocean basins, mountain systems and rift valleys, and other features by mechanisms such as lithospheric plate movement, volcanic loading, or folding. The study of diastrophism, or tectonic processes, may now be considered as the central unifying movement in late 20th-century geology and geophysics. Tectonic processes chiefly comprise linear or torsional horizontal movements (such as continental drift) and vertical subsidence and uplift of the lithosphere (strain) in response to natural stresses on the Earth's surface such as the weight of mountains, lakes, and glaciers. Subsurface conditions also cause subsidence or uplift, known as epeirogeny, over large areas of the Earth's surface without deforming rock strata; such changes include the thickening of the lithosphere by overthrusts of sedimentary strata, changes in rock density of the lithosphere caused by metamorphism or thermal expansion and contraction, increases in the volume of the asthenosphere (part of the upper mantle supporting the lithosphere) caused by hydration of olivine, and orogenic, or mountain-building, movements.