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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.

Some may occur as aftershocks caused by seismic waves traveling outward from crustal earthquakes.

From Science Daily • Feb. 20, 2026

Over the past decade, growing evidence has convinced many researchers that rare earthquakes do originate in the mantle, though they may occur about 100 times less frequently than crustal earthquakes.

From Science Daily • Feb. 20, 2026

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

"Mantle earthquakes offer a novel way to explore earthquake origins and the internal structure of Earth beyond ordinary crustal earthquakes."

From Science Daily • Feb. 20, 2026

At first people called them "crustal blocks" or sometimes "paving stones."

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

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