Earth System
What is a system? How is the Earth a system?
A system is a group of parts that all work together as a whole. The Earth is a system because all the spheres interactive and affect each other.
What is elevation? What is relief?
Elevation is height about sea level. Relief is the distance in elevation between the highest point and the lowest point.
Can the total amount of water on Earth change? Explain?
The total amount of water does not change. It just cycles through the stages of the water cycle. The rate of precipitation will always be in balance with the rate of evaporation. Water is neither created nor destroyed in the water cycle.
When Earth is seen from outer space, it looks mainly blue. This is because most of the earth is covered with _________________
Water
What is surface water?
Surface water is any body of water above ground, including streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands, reservoirs, and creeks.
What are the two main sources of energy that drive Earth's Systems?
Heat from the sun and heat from inside the Earth.
Name 4 different landforms.
Answers will vary but should include: Mountain, plateaus, plains, coastlines, rivers and deltas.
The constant process in which water moves between Earth and its atmosphere is the _________________
Water Cycle
What percentage of the water on earth is salt water? What percentage is useable water?
97.4% is salt water. Less than 1% is useable.
What are three features of the Ocean floor?
Answers will vary but should include: abyssal plains, seamounts, trenches, continental slope and continental shelf.
What are the four main spheres and how would you describe each one?
The atmosphere is a layer of gases that surround the Earth.
The biosphere includes all the living things on Earth.
The geosphere includes rocks and soil.
The hydrosphere hold all of Earth's water.
Which has greater relief - plains or plateaus? How do you know?
Plateaus have greater relief than plains. We know because plateaus have a greater distance between their lowest elevations and their highest. Plains are flat and therefore have very low relief.
What is an aquifer?
An aquifer is an underground body of rocks and sediment that holds groundwater.
What percentage of the Earth's surface is water?
71%
Go to the board and draw a contour map of an mountain with two peaks. How would we know it has 2 peaks?
The map should have two distinct circles within the larger circle.
Give one way that you interact with each of Earth's spheres everyday.
I interact with the biosphere when I take care of pets. I interact with the hydrosphere when I drink water. I interact with the geosphere when I walk up or down a hill. I interact with the atmosphere when I breathe.
What are contour lines on a topographic map and what do they show?
Contour lines connect points of equal elevation. They show elevation, relief and slope.
What is transpiration?
Transpiration is the loss of water as vapor from plants at their surfaces.
What is groundwater?
Groundwater is water that exists underground.
What percent of Earth's fresh water is accessible? Where is most of Earth's fresh water found?
Less than 1% of Earth's fresh water is accessible. Most of Earth's fresh water in found in glacier and underground.
What is one interaction between the biosphere and the geosphere?
Answers will vary. Ie Plant roots grow into rock and soil causing erosion.
If the lines on a contour map are very close together, what does that tell you? If the lines are fair apart, what does that tell you?
Close lines represent land the is steep. Wider spaced lines represent land that is flat.
What is a watershed?
A watershed is an area of land that channels rainfall, snowmelt, and runoff into a common body of water.
Glaciers and ice caps, underground, lakes, rivers and streams.
What are constructive and destructive forces? Name one of each.
Constructive forces build up land. Destructive forces wear away land. The forming of mountain ranges is a constructive force. The erosion of land caused by a river is a destructive force.