Earth & Space Science Regents Vocabulary Practice

Vocabulary flashcards covering core concepts of Earth and Space Science, ranging from regents-style test-taking strategies to specific scientific theories and geologic processes.

ESSRT

The Earth & Space Science Reference Tables, a crucial set of charts and data used to answer most Regents questions.

Geosphere

The Earth system that includes rocks, minerals, landforms, and the Earth’s interior.

Cryosphere

The Earth system consisting of ice, glaciers, and snow.

Big Bang Theory

The explanation that the universe began about $13.8$ billion years ago from a hot, dense state and has been expanding ever since.

Redshift

The stretching of light waves toward longer wavelengths, indicating that most distant galaxies are moving away from Earth.

Hubble’s Law

The principle stating that galaxies farther away from us move away at a faster velocity.

Nuclear Fusion

The process in main sequence stars that fuses hydrogen into helium, releasing energy and creating outward pressure.

Spectroscopy

The scientific method of separating light into wavelengths to identify the chemical composition of stars using spectral lines.

Kepler’s First Law

The law stating that planetary orbits are ellipses with the Sun at one focus.

Coriolis Effect

The phenomenon that causes moving air and water to curve to the right in the Northern Hemisphere.

Spring Tides

Tides that occur during new and full moons when the Sun, Moon, and Earth are aligned, resulting in higher tide ranges.

Equinox

Occurs around March and September when day and night are approximately equal worldwide due to Earth’s axial tilt and position.

Differentiation

The process by which early molten Earth separated into layers, with dense materials like iron sinking to the core.

Half-life

The constant and predictable amount of time it takes for half of the remaining parent radioactive material to decay into a daughter product.

Asthenosphere

The weaker, slowly flowing layer of the mantle located beneath the lithosphere upon which tectonic plates move.

Subduction

The process where denser oceanic crust sinks beneath another plate into the mantle at a convergent boundary.

P-waves

Primary seismic waves that travel through both solids and liquids.

S-waves

Secondary seismic waves that travel only through solids and create shadow zones in the liquid outer core.

Bowen’s Reaction Series

A model showing the specific order in which minerals crystallize as magma cools, with olivine forming at the highest temperatures.

Hardness

A mineral property measured by resistance to scratching, often ranked using the Mohs Hardness Scale.

Cleavage

The tendency of a mineral to break along flat, parallel planes based on its atomic arrangement.

Permeability

A measure of how easily water can flow through the connected pore spaces in a material like soil or rock.

Albedo

The reflectivity of a surface; for example, ice has high albedo while dark ocean water has low albedo.

Maritime Tropical (mT)

An air mass that is warm and humid because it formed over warm ocean waters.

Hadley Cells

Atmospheric convection patterns that create rising air and rain near the equator and sinking air near $30^{\circ}$ latitude.

Milankovitch Cycles

Long-term changes in Earth’s orbit (eccentricity), axial tilt (obliquity), and wobble (precession) that pace ice ages.

Ocean Acidification

The lowering of ocean pH caused by the absorption of excess atmospheric $CO_2$, which forms carbonic acid and harms corals.

Orogeny

A mountain-building event caused by tectonic plate interactions, such as the Taconic or Acadian orogenies.

Index Fossils

Fossils used to correlate rock layers because the organism was widespread, easy to identify, and existed for a short period of geologic time.

Constraints

The limits placed on an engineering design, such as cost, safety, materials, and maintenance requirements.