Watersheds & water quality
What do we call an area of land that drains into a single river, lake, or other body of water?
What is a watershed?
What is the name for the earliest, longest part of Earth's history (before abundant complex life)?
What is the Precambrian era?
What is an example of a body of water where freshwater mixes with saltwater, forming an estuary?
What is the Pamlico Sound?
What geologic event is most directly caused by the movement of Earth's plates and commonly produces shaking at the surface?
What are earthquakes?
Which U.S. agency is primarily responsible for ensuring the safety of the country's drinking water?
What is the underground layer of rock or sediment that holds and yields groundwater called?
What is an aquifer?
What principle states that in undisturbed sedimentary rock layers, the oldest layers are at the bottom?
What is the Law of Superposition?
Which ocean zone is exposed to the air during low tide, and is home to organisms like clams and crabs that burrow in the sand?
What is the intertidal zone?
What is deposition?
What is the dropping or settling of sediment in a new location?
What is point-source pollution, and what is an example?
What is pollution that enters water from a single, identifiable source. An example is an oil spill from a tanker.
What are three water quality indicators that are commonly used to assess the health of a river system?
What are pH, turbidity, nitrates, dissolved Oxygen, and temperature.
What dating method gives scientists the absolute (actual) age of a rock or fossil?
What is radioactive dating?
What is upwelling, and how does upwelling help surface ocean life?
What is a process that brings nutrient-rich deep water to the surface, increasing Oxygen and salinity for organisms at the surface.
How can marine fossils be used as evidence that some mountains were once below sea level?
What is the fact that the mountains of today could have been ancient sea beds where fossils deposited, and geologic processes changed the land over time so that sea beds are above water, and are now mountains.
What is non-point source pollution, and what is an example?
What is runoff from multiple sources, where there is no one polluter or it is not clear who polluted? An example is nutrient runoff from into waterways.
What process describes the movement of sediment and soil from one place to another by wind, water, or ice?
What is erosion?
What type of rock forms when existing rock is subjected to heat and pressure, but does not melt?
What is metamorphic rock?
Which reservoir contains the greatest proportion of Earth's total water: oceans, glaciers, groundwater, or rivers?
What are oceans?
Describe the three types of plate boundaries.
What are plates moving together, plates moving apart, and plates sliding past each other.
What is an algal bloom, and what nutrient condition commonly causes it?
What is a rapid increase in algae, caused by excess nutrients (especially nitrates and phosphates) in the water?
Explain how increased nutrient runoff can lead to decreased dissolved Oxygen and fish deaths in a lake.
What is the process of nutrient runoff from fertilizers, algal blooms, reduced sunlight, decreased temperature, decreased photosynthesis, decreased Oxygen, and death of fish and other organisms?
Describe one type of fossil evidence scientists use to determine the relative ages of rock layers and explain why it is useful.
What are index fossils? Index fossils are useful because they are widespread, abundant, and short-lived.
What is the primary source of most of the salt in the ocean?
What is weathering of rocks on land, carried to oceans by streams and rivers.
Describe a river basin.
What is the land area that drains into a main river, including its tributaries.
Describe two stewardship actions communities and take to protect freshwater sources?
What are reducing fertilizer waste and improving wastewater treatment and monitoring?