crustal

American

[kruhs-tl] / ˈkrʌs tl /

adjective

of or relating to a crust, as of the earth.

crustal British

/ ˈkrʌstəl /

adjective

of or relating to the earth's crust

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of crustal

1855–60; < Latin crūst ( a ) shell, crust + -al ¹

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

To reliably tell mantle earthquakes apart from crustal ones, Wang and Klemperer developed a technique that compares two kinds of seismic waves.

From Science Daily • Feb. 20, 2026

"The timing and rate of early crustal growth on Earth remains contentious due to the scarcity of very ancient rocks," Ms Boyce said.

From Science Daily • Jan. 10, 2026

However, it was not known that Mars also possessed the diverse, explosive volcanoes that form on Earth due to crustal recycling.

From Science Daily • Feb. 15, 2024

Therefore, exploring other planets like Mars, which has volcanism but no plate tectonics, can help reveal the mysteries of early crustal recycling on both the Red Planet, and by analogy, on early Earth.

From Science Daily • Feb. 15, 2024

If you had been looking for a very long, geologic time, you could have seen the continents them- selves in motion, drifting apart on their crustal plates, held afloat by the fire beneath.

From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023