Ch 9: Water
The part of the hydrologic cycle referring to water vapor released by plants
What is transpiration
The forest harvesting method that leaves the forest close to natural old growth forest
What is selective harvest
The 3 main crops that humans rely on for the majority of nutrients and calories
What are wheat, rice, and maize (corn)?
The type of rock formed when rocks are exposed to intense heat and pressure.
What are metamorphic rocks?
A common unit to measure energy, the energy expended in 1 amp/sec flowing through 1 ohm resistance
What is a joule?
Specific, easily identified locations of pollution, ex: factories, power plants, sewage treatment plants, and oil wells.
What is point source pollution
The approximate percentage of old growth forest that remains in the U.S. today
What is less than 10%?
Created by splicing genes to achieve desired traits, advantages include resistance to drought, disease, pests, and increased yield
What is a genetically modified organism (GMO)?
A naturally occurring, inorganic solid with a specific chemical composition and specific internal crystal structure.
What is a mineral?
Neutron-absorbing material inserted between fuel assemblies in nuclear reactors to regulate fission reaction.
What are control rods?
A vast area of the Pacific Ocean containing plastic debris concentrated by global ocean circulation currents.
What is the great pacific garbage patch?
To remove trees from a forest. Factors include logging, agriculture, and building roads
What is deforestation
The erosive force most likely to affect dry regions with little vegetation
What is wind?
What are earthquakes?
This type of energy plant depends on a cooling system where a failed pump or broken pipe may result in a "meltdown."
What is a nuclear power plant?
The water that infiltrates through the ground and is stored in spaces in soil and rock
What is groundwater
A forest where tree crowns spread over 20 percent of the ground; has the potential for commercial timber harvests.
What is Closed-canopy forests?
The 2 common diseases from the textbook resulting from protein deficiency
What are marasmus and kwashiorkor?
Rocks solidified from the cooling of molten magma from deep in the earth’s interior
What are igneous rocks?
One joule per second. A unit of power, energy use per second.
Scattered or not easily identifiable sources of pollution, examples include runoff from farms or urban areas
What is nonpoint source pollution
Largely caused by overgrazing, the process of fertile land converting to desert conditions
What is desertification
A situation in which farmers must use increasingly complex and expensive cocktails of pesticides to combat pests: similar to addiction.
What is pesticide treadmill?
The Earth's core or interior is composed mostly of this dense, intensely hot metal
What is iron?
This refers to energy lost due to system leaks and inefficiencies and accounts for 66.7% of all energy produced.
What is rejected energy?
The most important mechanism for redistributing water around the world
What is the atmosphere
What is 10%?
The ability of individuals to obtain sufficient food on a day-to-day basis.
What is food security?
Pumping a pressurized mixture of water, sand and chemicals into oil and gas wells to break up geologic formations and release hydrocarbons
What is hydraulic fracturing or "fracking?"
A series of mirrors used to concentrate sunlight into heat absorbing fluid that boils water and moves a turbine.
What is concentrating solar power?
All the land drained by a particular river
What is a watershed
Cutting every tree in a given area, regardless of species or size; an appropriate harvest method for some species; can be destructive if not carefully controlled.
What is clear-cutting?
Eye problems from dry eye to retinal degeneration to blindness are caused by deficiency in this vitamin.
What is vitamin A?
The mining process that provides about 50% of the coal used in the U.S.
What is strip mining?
Mechanical devices that use hydrogen or hydrogen-containing fuel, such as methane, to produce an electric current.
What is a fuel cell?
The main reason surface water pollution has decreased in the U.S. since the 1950s
What is the clean water act
A sustainable form of managing grasslands, confining animals to a small area for a short time, forcing them to eat everything, trample the ground, and heavily fertilize the land
What is rotational grazing?
Laboratory manipulation of genetic material to create the desired traits of GMOs
What is genetic engineering?
This produced the ring of fire, the source of more earthquakes and volcanic activity than any other region on earth
What is subduction of Pacific oceanic plates under continental plates?
Geologic deposits composed of sand and shale particles coated with bitumen, a viscous mixture of long-chain hydrocarbons.
What are tar sands?
Settling of the ground surface that results from withdrawal of large amounts of groundwater, oil, or other underground materials.
What is subsidence?
Biologists are especially concerned about this type of forest loss due to its incredibly high biodiversity.
What is tropical forest loss?
The reason why increases in corn and soy production are closely linked to livestock raised for meat.
What is corn and soy make feed for animals raised for meat?
Changes in rocks because of exposure to air, water, changing temperatures, and reactive chemical agents.
What is weathering?
A fuel alternative made from fat or vegetable oil that can be used in a standard diesel engine with little modification or processing
What is biodiesel?
The place where aquifers are most likely to be contaminated
What are recharge zones
Strips of natural habitat connecting smaller habitats allowing populations to maintain genetic diversity
What are corridors?
A layer of mixed organic and mineral soil material, also called the A horizon.
What is topsoil?
Roasting ore to release metals from mineral compounds.
What is smelting?
This is the reason photovoltaic cells can generate electricity when exposed to sunlight.
What is the release of electrons due to solar energy striking the cell’s surface, creating an electric potential?