Earth's Spheres
This sphere includes all living things on Earth.
What is the biosphere?
The process where liquid water turns into water vapor from heat.
What is evaporation?
This element is the main component of living things and cycles through Earth’s spheres.
What is carbon?
The gas that makes up about 78% of Earth’s atmosphere.
What is nitrogen?
Water that seeps deep underground and collects in aquifers is called this.
What is groundwater?
This sphere includes all water found on, under, or above Earth’s surface.
What is the hydrosphere?
Water vapor cooling to form clouds.
What is condensation?
Plants use this process to convert carbon dioxide into glucose using sunlight.
What is photosynthesis?
The atmospheric layer where all weather takes place.
What is the troposphere?
Animals breathe out this gas as part of cellular respiration.
What is CO2?
This sphere consists of rock, soil, minerals, and Earth’s crust and upper mantle.
What is the geosphere (or lithosphere)?
Rain, snow, sleet, or hail falling from clouds.
What is precipitation?
Processes that add extra carbon to the atmosphere are called these.
What are carbon sources?
This layer contains the ozone layer, which absorbs harmful UV radiation.
What is the stratosphere?
Dead plants are buried, compressed, and eventually become fossil fuels over millions of years. This is an example of carbon moving into which Earth sphere?
What is the geosphere?
The layer of frozen solid water including glaciers, icecaps, and snow.
What is the cryosphere?
Water soaking into soil and moving down to become groundwater.
What is infiltration (or percolation)?
The burning of fossil fuels that releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
What is combustion?
The outermost layer of the atmosphere where satellites orbit.
What is the exosphere?
This atmospheric layer protects life by absorbing about 98% of the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation.
What is the stratosphere (ozone layer)?
Weather occurs in this lowest layer of the atmosphere.
What is the troposphere?
The process where plants release water vapor into the atmosphere.
What is transpiration?
Long-term carbon storage in rocks like limestone that lasts millions of years.
What is carbon sequestration in the geosphere?
The region of charged particles that reflects radio waves and creates auroras.
What is the ionosphere?
After heavy rain, water flows over land into rivers instead of soaking into the ground. This process is called what?
What is runoff?