Plate Tectonics
This type of plate boundary experiences frequent earthquakes when plates move past each other horizontally.
Transform boundary.
This type of seismic wave is the fastest and is the first to be detected by a seismograph.
P-wave (Primary wave).
This term describes an organism's unique role or job and how it survives within its habitat.
Niche.
This is the process where organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.
Natural selection.
This process in the water cycle involves water vapor cooling and turning back into liquid to form clouds.
Condensation.
This is the specific type of plate boundary where two plates move away from each other and new crust forms.
Divergent boundary.
This scale measures the magnitude or energy released by an earthquake on a scale of 1 to 10.
Richter scale.
This specific biome is characterized by permafrost, extremely low temperatures, and vegetation like mosses and lichens.
Tundra.
David Attenborough discusses the danger of overfishing. What is his proposed solution to this issue?
No-fishing zones in a third of coastal oceans.
This movement in the mantle cause material to rise when heated and sink as it cools, driving plate movement.
Convection currents.
This geological feature is most likely to form at a continental-continental convergent boundary.
A massive mountain range (e.g., the Himalayas).
This term describes magma with high silica content that is thick and sticky, leading to violent eruptions.
High viscosity.
This symbiotic relationship benefits one organism while the other is neither helped nor harmed.
Commensalism
This is the primary cause of biodiversity loss since the 1950s according to modern scientific consensus.
Human activity and habitat destruction.
This term refers to the maximum population size that an environment can consistently support.
Carrying capacity.
Explain the process of subduction. Which plate sinks and why, and what semi-solid layer of the mantle does it sink into?
The denser oceanic plate sinks beneath the less dense continental plate into the asthenosphere, which is the semi-solid, putty-like layer of the mantle.
A scientist describes an earthquake as a 'Level IX' because many buildings collapsed. Identify the scale being used and explain how it differs from the Richter Scale.
Unlike the Richter Scale, which measures energy (magnitude), the Mercalli scale measures intensity based on observed damage to structures and human reactions.
Explain the primary role of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in an ecosystem. How do they transform atmospheric nitrogen for use by other organisms?
They convert atmospheric nitrogen gas into a form that plants can absorb through their roots. This process is called nitrogen fixation.
Explain why biodiversity loss is considered a direct threat to human survival. Focus on the concept of 'resilience' in ecosystems.
Biodiversity provides resilience, allowing ecosystems to recover from disasters. Loss of biodiversity weakens the systems that provide humans with essential services like food, clean water, and oxygen.
In a predator-prey relationship, if the population of prey increases, what typically happens to the population of predators shortly after?
The predator population also increases (because there is more food available).
Describe the evidence for seafloor spreading provided by magnetic striping. How do magnetic reversals and the pattern of stripes relative to the mid-ocean ridge support this theory?
Magnetic reversals create a mirror-image pattern of "stripes" on either side of a mid-ocean ridge.
Explanation: As new crust is formed at the mid ocean ridge, iron-rich minerals record the Earth's current magnetic field. When the magnetic field reveres, new rock records this change. The pattern of magnetic striping proves that new crust is being created at the ridge and pushed outward.
Explain the relationship between seismic lag time and distance. Why does the gap between P-waves and S-waves increase as they travel further from the epicenter?
Lag time increases with distance because P-waves travel faster than S-waves.
Explanation: Think of two runners at different speeds: the longer the race, the further ahead the faster runner gets. Because P-waves are faster, the lag time between their arrival and the slower S-waves' arrival grows larger the further the waves travel from the epicenter.
Compare and contrast the role of a top predator vs a decomposer. Provide a specific example of how a decomposer functions within a food web to maintain the health of the ecosystem.
Top predators gain nutrients from and control the populations of secondary and primary consumers (prey) below them. Decomposers break down dead organic matter to return nutrients to the soil.
Explanation: Decomposers (like fungi or bacteria) are essential for maintaining healthy ecosystems because they recycle the limiting nutrients (like nitrogen and carbon) that producers need to survive. Without decomposers, the energy flow in the food web would stop as nutrients remained trapped in dead tissue.
Using the Peppered Moth as evidence, explain how 'selection pressure' drives natural selection. Why did the dark-colored moths have a survival advantage in 19th-century England?
Selection pressure is an environmental factor (like predation or soot) that makes certain traits more favorable.
Explanation: In 19th-century England, soot covered the trees. This changed the selection pressure: light moths were now easily seen by birds, while dark moths were camouflaged. The dark moths survived to reproduce at higher rates, passing on their genes and causing the population's traits to shift over generations.
Predict the consequences for an island ecosystem if a disease reduced the predator population to zero. Use the terms 'limiting factors' and 'carrying capacity' to explain the impact on the prey and the vegetation.
Without predators as a limiting factor, prey exceed carrying capacity, overgraze vegetation, and cause the ecosystem to collapse.