Earth Systems & Spheres
When carbon moves between the atmosphere, living things, oceans, and rocks, it is moving through this Earth system cycle.
What is the carbon cycle?
The driving force behind most erosion is
What is gravity?
The reason planets closer to the Sun complete orbits faster than planets farther from the Sun is explained by this scientist’s laws.
Who is Kepler?
Radioactive dating works because unstable atoms decay into more stable atoms at a predictable rate called this.
What is half-life?
This localized process alters existing rock through intense heat alone when it comes into direct contact with an underground magma intrusion.
What is contact metamorphism?
The layer of the atmosphere contains a vast majority of Earth's water vapor.
What is the troposphere?
Warm air rising and cool air sinking creates circular movement in the atmosphere or mantle called this.
What is a convection current?
The seasons are mainly caused by Earth’s revolution around the Sun and this characteristic of Earth’s axis.
What is tilt?
If only 25% of the original radioactive parent material remains, this many half-lives have passed.
What are two half-lives?
Matching earthquake and volcano patterns around the Pacific Ocean provides evidence for this major tectonic feature.
What is the Ring of Fire?
This object serves as a buffer zone preventing pollution from making its way from city streets into near by water ways.
What is a rain graden?
This type of weather front forms when a warm and cold air mass meet, but neither has the power to displace the other, resulting in days of continuous rain.
What is a stationary front?
According to Kepler’s First Law, planets orbit the Sun in this shape, with the Sun located at one focus.
What is an ellipse?
Carbon breaks down by half in this fixed amount of time.
What is 5730 Years?
This landscape region is recognized as being very resistant to weathering and composed of metamorphic rocks.
What is mountians/highlands?
Burning fossil fuels adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, which can increase this effect that traps heat near Earth’s surface.
What is the greenhouse effect?
This unique characteristic of water allows areas like Long Island to stay significantly cooler and warmer than inland cities.
What is specific heat?
The lack of atmosphere on the moon prevented this process that now leads to the moon having several craters.
What is weathering?
The radioactive decay of isotopes from this heavy element into stable lead allows geologists to determine the 4.54 billion-year age of the Earth.
What is Uranium?
The pattern of symmetric magnetic stripes on both sides of a mid-ocean ridge provides evidence for this process.
What is seafloor spreading?
Melting ice lowers Earth’s albedo, causing Earth to absorb more solar energy and melt even more ice.
What is a positive feedback loop?
First described in 1835, this effect causes moving fluids like ocean currents and wind to curve to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern.
What is the Coriolis Effect?
Kepler’s Third Law shows that as a planet’s average distance from the Sun increases, this also increases.
What is its orbital period?
These ancient, aquatic microorganisms were Earth's first photosynthesizers, and their oxygen-producing activity caused the Great Oxidation Event about 2.4 billion years ago.
What is cyanobacteria?
The process that creates sedimentary rock from sediments is
What is compaction and cementation?