Earth's Systems
What are the four Earth Systems?
Geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere.
What is a landform?
A natural structure on Earth's surface, such as a mountain, valley, beach, or dune.
What is weathering?
The breaking down of rock through interactions with Earth's systems.
A river carries soil downstream. What process is occurring?
Erosion.
Which Earth system includes rocks, soil, mountains, and land?
Geosphere
How can water and wind change Earth's surface?
They can weather, erode, or move and deposit soil and sediment, changing the shape of the land.
What is erosion?
The loosening and carrying away of weathered material from one place to another.
A river slows down and drops the sediment it is carrying. What process is occurring?
Deposition.
Which Earth system includes plants and animals?
Biosphere
How can glaciers change Earth's surface?
Glaciers can scrape, gouge, pick up, and carry rocks and soil, changing the shape of the land.
What is deposition?
When moving wind, water, or glaciers slow down and drop the sediment they are carrying.
Plant roots grow into cracks in a rock and break it apart. Which two Earth systems are interacting?
Biosphere + geosphere.
Which Earth system includes water such as oceans, rivers, and glaciers?
Hydrosphere
How can living things change Earth's surface?
Plants can break apart rocks with their roots, and decaying plants and animals help form soil.
How are weathering, erosion, and deposition different?
Wind carries sand that rubs against a rock and wears it away. Which two systems are interacting, and what process is occurring?
Atmosphere + geosphere; weathering.
Why are Earth's systems called "systems"?
They interact with one another, and changes in one system can cause changes in other systems and Earth's surface.
How can a change in one Earth system cause changes in another?
For example, a change in the geosphere can affect the atmosphere by changing cloud formation, which can then affect the biosphere because animals may leave an area when weather patterns change.
Rock is broken down, carried away, and then dropped in a new location. Name the three processes in order.
Weathering → erosion → deposition.
Explain how Earth's systems can interact to form soil and change Earth's surface.
Weathering breaks rock into smaller pieces. Those materials can mix with decaying organisms, water, and air to form soil. Plants and other organisms can further change the geosphere, while wind and water can move and deposit soil elsewhere.