Rocks, Minerals, & Soil
This is the first stage of soil formation following a catastrophe that destroys all pre-existing soil and leaves only bare rock or ash.
What is Primary Succession?
This type of water source provides approximately 74% of the fresh water used in the United States.
What is Surface Water?
This is the only renewable energy source listed on your exam that does not require a spinning turbine to generate electricity.
What is Solar (Photovoltaic) energy?
This Law states that energy can be converted from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed.
What is the Law of Conservation of Energy?
This gas is the most abundant in Earth’s atmosphere, making up roughly 78% of the air we breathe.
What is Nitrogen?
This agricultural term refers to planting a large area of cropland with only one single type of crop.
What is a Monoculture
This specific nutrient is most commonly responsible for triggering eutrophication (excessive algae growth) in freshwater ecosystems.
What is Phosphorus?
One of the biggest advantages of wind power is that it produces no air pollution and none of these heat-trapping gases.
What are Greenhouse Gases?
This is the specific device in a power plant that converts mechanical energy (motion) into electrical energy.
What is a Generator?
The protective ozone layer, which filters out harmful UV radiation, is found in this specific layer of the atmosphere.
What is the Stratosphere?
This specific component, concentrated in the O and A soil horizons, is a strong indicator of soil fertility and decomposition.
What is Humus?
This term refers to the entire land area that supplies and drains water into a river system.
What is a watershed?
This specific location is where average wind speeds are generally 20% faster than they are over land.
What is Offshore (over the ocean)?
This is the specific fossil fuel that is primarily composed of methane.
What is Natural Gas?
This is the natural process that allows certain gases in the atmosphere to trap heat near the Earth’s surface.
What is the Greenhouse Effect?
To be classified as this, a substance must be inorganic, occur in nature, and have a specific internal crystalline structure.
What is a Mineral?
This is the boundary line that separates the underground zone of aeration from the zone of saturation where permeable rock layers hold groundwater.
What is the water table? (Aquifer)
This is the most common element in the universe and can be used as a clean fuel, producing only water vapor and heat as a byproduct.
What is Hydrogen?
This is the name of the process where the nuclei of heavy atoms (like Uranium) are split to release energy.
What is Nuclear Fission?
This successful international treaty was designed specifically to protect the ozone layer by phasing out CFCs.
What is the Montreal Protocol?
This type of rock is formed when magma cools slowly below the Earth’s surface.
What is Igneous Rock?
Global fresh water is used for three primary purposes; list them in order from greatest to least usage.
What are Agriculture, Industry, and Personal use?
This process uses electricity to split water (H2O) into hydrogen and oxygen gases.
What is Electrolysis?
Unlike fossil fuels, the main environmental disadvantage of nuclear power is the production of waste that stays dangerous for this long.
What is thousands of years?
When the ocean absorbs excessive CO2 from the atmosphere, it results in this chemical change that lowers the water's pH.
What is Ocean Acidification?