Resources
Any natural materials that are used by humans such as water, petroleum, minerals
What are natural resources?
The layers of gas that surround the Earth
What is the atmosphere?
A molecule with opposite charges on different ends
What is a polar molecule?
The chemical backbone of life on Earth
The process of converting atmospheric nitrogen into a usable form
What is nitrogen fixation?
These can be replaced relatively quickly by natural processes
What are renewable resources?
The lowest, densest layer of the atmosphere
What is the troposphere?
The property of water that allows it to stick to itself
What is cohesion?
Where carbon spends most its time (waiting)
What are carbon sinks?
The absorption of nutrients by plants to build tissues
What is assimilation?
These form at a much slower rate than they are consumed
What are nonrenewable resources?
What is the stratosphere?
The property of water that allows it to stick to other materials?
What is adhesion?
The main drivers of the biological or "fast cycle" of carbon
What are photosynthesis & cellular respiration?
What is eutrophication?
When a large fraction of a resource has been used up
What is depletion?
The coldest layer of the atmsphere
What is the mesosphere?
The effect when cohesion and adhesion work together
What is capillary action?
The form that carbon takes when it dissolves into seawater
The process by which bacteria convert nitrates into the soil back into nitrogen gas
What is denitrification?
Trees, sunlight, wind, and water are examples
What are renewable resources?
What is the thermosphere?
The amount of heat required to raise the temperature of a substance
What is specific heat?
Where carbon is stored in the geosphere (the largest carbon reservoir).
What are fossil fuels?
In biological fixation of nitrogen, these play the most important part
What are specialized bacteria?