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89 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What percentage of Earth's water is contained in oceans? |
97.2% |
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Why do oceans freeze at 28 degrees Fahrenheit? |
Salt bonds within ocean water acts to lower the freezing temperature |
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What is the largest & deepest body of water? |
the pacific ocean |
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What is the smallest & shallowest body of water? |
the arctic ocean |
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What is the third largest body of water? |
the Indian ocean |
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Where is the great southern ocean located? |
These are the waters encircling Antarctica (isolated by the west wind drift current located at the subtropical convergence at 40S latitude) |
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How many tides occur every 24 hours and 52 minutes? |
2 high tides and 2 low tides occur |
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What is the tidal range? |
The difference between high tide and low tide |
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What is the spring tide? |
An extra strong tide that is from the sun and moon aligning |
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What is a Neap tide? |
A weaker tide that is caused from the Sun and Moon being at right angles and cancelling each other out |
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What are Gyres? |
They are broad circulating surface currents patterns driven by the wind |
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What is a perrige? |
It is when the moon is closest to the Earth |
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What is an apoge? |
It is when the moon is farthest from the Earth
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What is a Thermohaline current? |
a deep ocean current driven by density differences |
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What are waves? |
they are undulations in the surface of a water body |
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what is the cryosphere? |
it is the total of ice on Earth (over 2% of Earth's water) |
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What amount of Earth's ice is contained in Greenland? |
a little less than 15% |
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What amount of Earth's ice is contained in Antarctica? |
85% |
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What are ice caps? |
they are smaller masses of permanent ice which originate in high latitude |
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What are alpine glaciers? |
They are flowing masses of ice which are caused by the high latitude of certain regions |
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What types of floating ice exist? |
ice pack ice floe iceberg ice shelves permafrost |
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What is an ice pack? |
It is a large mass of floating ice |
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What is an ice floe? |
A smaller mass of floating ice |
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What is an iceberg? |
It is a chunk of floating ice |
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What is an ice shelf? |
a mass of floating ice connected to ice sheets |
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what is permafrost? |
it is permanently frozen soil or subsoil |
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What are surface waters? |
These are waters in lakes and streams |
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What is a stream? |
this is a channelized floating body of water of any size |
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What/Where is the largest channel of water by volume/largest drainage basin? |
THe Amazon River in Brazil |
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What/Where is the 2nd largest channel of water? |
The congo river in equatorial west africa |
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What is the longest river in the world? |
The Nile river |
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Where is the largest and deepest freshwater lake and what is it called? |
It is located in Siberia, and it is called Lake Baykal |
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What is the largest saline lake? |
The capsian sea |
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What phenomenon struck the Aral Sea in Central Asia? |
Manmade dams caused this lake (4th largest lake) to nearly dissapear |
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Which lake in west africa has dissappeared? |
Lake Chad |
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What is infiltration? |
it is when water moves down through soil |
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what is runoff? |
moisture flowing over land |
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What is the zone of aeration? |
Region in the ground in which pore spaces are filled with air. |
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What is the water table? |
It is the upper limit of the zone of saturation |
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What is the zone of saturation? |
It is the area where all space between air and soil contains water |
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what are interstices? |
areas between soil particles |
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What is an aquifer? |
It is soil that easily stores and transmits ground water clay (low permeability) |
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What is an aquiclude? |
It is soil or unfractured rock that restricts the passage of ground water |
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What is an aquitarde? |
It is soil that slows the passage of groundwater |
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What is fossil water? |
It is water trapped beneath an aquiclude (restricts passage of groundwater) |
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What is watermining? |
It is the act of taking groundwater that can never be recharged, or taking groundwater faster than it recharges |
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what is a spring? |
it is a natural opening of groundwater to the surface |
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what is a well? |
artifical opening of groundwater to the surface |
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what is the cone of depression? |
a reduction in the pressure head surrounding the pumped well |
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What is subsidence? |
it is a lowering of the land surface due to excessive groundwater pumping |
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What is the high plains aquifer or ogallala aquifer? |
An aquifer in the midwest united states where water mining and subsidence occurs |
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what happens in a sub artesian well? |
water rises part-way to the surface (requires pumping) |
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What is an artesian well? |
A well in which water rises to the surface under its own confined pressure (no pumping needed) |
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What is the piezometric surface? |
It is the level that confined water rises to |
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What does the enviromental protection agency oversee? |
it protects human health and the enviroment by advocation |
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What did the National enviromental policy act do? (NEPA) |
it required federal agencies to report enviromental impacts of construction projects |
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What did the California Enviromental Quality Act ensure? |
it required developments to prepare enviromental impact reports (but to a much more detailed degree) |
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What did the clean air act establish? |
it required regulations to be implemented on the emissions of factories and cars |
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What did the clean water act do? |
it regulated discharges of pollutatnts into waters of united states |
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What did the safe drinking water act establish? |
It set standards for clean drinking water in all of America. |
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What did the endangered species act do? |
It established regulations that would protect threatened or endangered species (administered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service) |
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How is the food pyramid understood? |
Fewer organisms are in the higher trophic levels/Many organisms are in the lower trophic levels |
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What is bioaccumulation? |
It is when pollutants become concentrated in higher trophic levels |
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What are biogeochemical cycles? |
They are pathways for how nutrients move throughout an ecosystem |
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What is an energy cycle? |
Acts which convert energy from one form to another, (photosynthesis, respiration) |
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What is photosynthesis? |
It is the process by which solar energy is converted to stored chemical energy by plants and bacteria |
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what is plant respiration? |
it is when plants use energy fixed during photosynthesis for growth and reproduction |
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What is net photosynthesis? |
the difference between energy produced during photosynthesis and lost during respiration |
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What is net primary productivity? |
it is the net photosynthesis of an ecosystem for a year (reflected in biomass) |
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What is ecology? |
It is the study of ecosystems |
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What is an ecosystem? |
it is a community of plants and animals that function together with non-living physical enviroments |
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what is biota? |
life |
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what is flora? |
plants |
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what is fanna? |
animal life |
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what is a system? |
a set of components that are interrelated |
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what is an open system? |
matter and energy enter and leave |
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what is a closed system? |
matter does not enter or leave |
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what are components of an ecosystem? |
Abiotic compentent Autotrophs Heterotrophs Detritivores |
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What are abiotic compents? |
the non living physical enviroment |
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what are autrophs? |
they are producers (plants and photosynthetic bacteria) |
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what are heterotrophs? |
they are consumers -herbivores= eat plants -carnivores= eat animals -omnivores= eat both |
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what is a detritivore? |
it is a decomposer (insects, worms, bacteria, mushroom) |
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What is the food chain? |
the pattern of feeding in an ecosystem |
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what is the food web? |
multiple interweaving food chains |
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what is the trophic level? |
it is the level that an organism occupies in a food chain |
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What is the carbon cycle? |
it is the movement of carbon from the atmosphere to vegetation to animals to gelogic layer back to the atmosphere |
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what is the oxygen cycle? |
iti s movement of oxygen from the atmosphere to vegetation to animals to geologic layers and back to the atmosphere |
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what is the nitrogen cycle? |
it is how nitrogen moves through ecosystems |
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What is nitrogen fixation? |
the conversion of nitrogen into nitrates by bacteria or types of vegetation |
