Geothermal Energy
This resource is heat energy that comes from where?
Answer: Inside the Earth/the Core
Copper is often found inside of "Ore." What is an ore?
Answer: A rock that contains enough metal or minerals to be mined for profit
Petroleum is a "fossil fuel." What was it originally millions of years ago?
Answer: Tiny marine organisms/plankton/algae
This is the name for the underground "sponge" of rock or sediment that holds water.
Answer: An Aquifer
Which of these two resources is considered "Renewable" because we can grow more in a human lifetime?
Answer: Wood/Trees
What is the most common way humans capture this energy to make electricity?
Answer: Pumping hot water/steam from underground to turn a turbine
How does copper get into the cracks of solid rock?
Answer: Hydrothermal processes/Super-heated water dissolves the metal and deposits it as it cools.
Which two conditions are required to turn organic mush into liquid oil?
Answer: Pressure and Place (where an ocean formerly was)—specifically being buried deep!
Most of Earth's freshwater is not drinkable because it is trapped here.
Answer: Glaciers and Ice caps
Soil is a mix of weathered rock and what other material?
Answer: Decayed organic matter/Humus
Is this resource renewable or nonrenewable? Explain why.
Answer: Renewable; Earth’s core will continue to produce heat for billions of years.
Name two common items in your house that use copper.
Answer: Electrical wiring and plumbing pipes/electronics
$300: Why is oil often found under the ocean or in deserts that used to be oceans?
Answer: Because that is where the ancient marine life died and was buried by sediment
What is the difference between permeable and impermeable rock?
Answer: Permeable allows water to flow through; impermeable acts like a "brick wall" and stops it
Name a geoscience process that can destroy soil or move it away.
Answer: Erosion/Wind/Water
To find this resource, you usually have to be near these two "hot" geological features.
Answer: Volcanoes or Tectonic Plate Boundaries
Most of the world's copper is found near convergent boundaries. What is happening to the tectonic plates there?
Answer: One plate is sliding under another/Subduction, creating heat and magma
In a "Layer Cake" of rocks, what must be on top of the oil to keep it from floating to the surface?
Answer: An impermeable "Cap Rock" or seal that traps the oil
How do humans "access" groundwater, and what happens if they pump it out too fast?
Answer: They drill wells; if pumped too fast, the water table drops or the land can sink/subsidence
Why is the "Best" soil for farming not found everywhere on Earth?
Answer: It depends on the local climate and the "parent rock" it broke down from
Why is geothermal energy unevenly distributed? Why can Iceland use it for almost everything, but a flat area like Florida cannot?
Answer: It requires magma to be close to the surface, which only happens at plate boundaries or "hotspots."
Copper is nonrenewable. How can humans use "Short-term Cycles" to make the supply last longer?
Answer: Recycling/Reusing old copper from electronics and scrap metal
Explain the process: How does sedimentation lead to the uneven distribution of oil?
Answer: You need thick layers of sediment to bury organic matter quickly before it rots, which only happened in specific ancient seas.
Why is groundwater unevenly distributed? Why do some deserts have huge aquifers while some rainy areas have very little?
Answer: It depends on the geology—you need the right kind of porous rock layers to "catch" and hold the water over thousands of years.
Wood is renewable, but if we cut down a whole forest at once, it becomes unsustainable. What does that mean?
Answer: We are using it faster than it can grow back, damaging the ecosystem.