Formation of Earth
This approximate age in billions of years represents when Earth was formed from the spinning cosmic dust cloud.
What is 4.6 billion years ago?
This chemical formula represents glucose, the primary product of photosynthesis.
What is C₆H₁₂O₆?
these four properties of air determine how it circulates.
What are density, water vapor capacity, adiabatic heating/cooling, and latent heat release?
Aquatic biomes are characterized by these three main factors.
What are depth, salinity, and water flow?
In faster streams, these two fish types are commonly found due to higher oxygen levels, while catfish prefer slower rivers with less oxygen.
What are trout and salmon?
This is what Earth's elements did as the molten material cooled and created the planet's distinct vertical structure.
What is separated into layers based on density?
According to the first law of thermodynamics, energy is neither created nor destroyed, but only does this.
What is changes form?
These three types of convection cells circulate air around Earth, with Hadley cells rising at the equator and sinking at 30°N/S.
What are Hadley cells, Ferrell cells, and Polar cells?
This term describes aquatic ecosystems with high nutrient content, which can sometimes lead to algae blooms.
What is eutrophic?
Wetlands serve as breeding grounds for numerous bird species, with this fraction of them being endangered.
What is ⅓ ?
This scientist proposed continental drift theory in 1912, using evidence from rock dating, continent shapes, and matching fossils.
Who is Alfred Wegener?
This is the average percentage of energy that is passed from one trophic level to another in ecological pyramids.
What is 10%?
This term describes the percentage of incoming sunlight reflected from Earth's surface, with ice having 80-90% and forests having 10-20%.
What is albedo?
In lakes and ponds, this zone has shallow water with emergent plant life.
What is the littoral zone?
Salt marshes serve as breeding grounds for this fraction of marine fish and shellfish species.
What is ⅔?
This pliable layer of the Earth, located between the mantle and lithosphere, allows for plate movement and is described as an interphase.
What is the asthenosphere?
These are the three main pools of the nitrogen cycle?
What are atmosphere, organic matter, and soil?
This effect causes the deflection of moving objects due to Earth's rotation, creating the curved wind patterns we observe.
What is the Coriolis effect?
These algal symbionts live in coral and receive CO₂ while supplying sugar, making coral reefs possible in nutrient-poor waters.
What are zooxanthellae?
Mangrove swamps contain these three types of "true mangroves" that are salt-tolerant trees with special adaptations like aerial roots.
What are red, white, and black mangroves?
This eon, lasting from 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago, marked the appearance of the first life on Earth.
What is the Archean eon?
This human activity affecting the hydrologic cycle includes damming rivers, pollution, paving surfaces, and re-routing water.
What are ways people affect the hydrologic cycle?
This occurs when air hits the windward side of a mountain, causing precipitation, then creates arid conditions on the leeward side through adiabatic heating.
What is a rain shadow?
Oceans generate this fraction of the world's oxygen and help redistribute heat through circulation.
What is ½ ?
Coral reefs are called the "rainforests of the oceans" but face extinction due to pollution, ocean acidification, warmer temperatures causing this harmful process, and overharvesting.
What is coral bleaching?