Includes: 3-1, 12-3, 14-1, & 14-5
Credit to Ayaan S for doing all the notes. I’ve just formatted everything for flashcard use.

The flashcards align better with the unit’s objectives .

3-1

• Atmosphere - thin spherical envelope of gasses surrounding earth’s surface

• 4 main spherical systems:

  • Troposphere - inner layer of atmosphere, extends only about 17 km above sea level at the tropics and about 7 km above earth’s north and south poles, contains air we breathe (mostly nitrogen 78%, oxygen 21%, water vapor/carbon dioxide/methane 1%)

  • Stratosphere - 17 to 50 km above earth’s surface, holds enough ozone gas to filter out about 95% of sun’s UV radiation

  • Hydrosphere - all water on or near earth’s surface, found as water vapor in atmosphere, liquid water on surface & underground, and as ice-polar ice, icebergs, glaciers, and ice in frozen soil-layers called permafrost, oceans (71% of globe) contain 97% of earth’s water

  • Geosphere - earth’s hot core, thick mantle (rock), and thin outer crust, most of it located in earth’s interior, upper portion contains nonrenewable fossil fuels and minerals we use, renewable soil chemicals

  • Biosphere - parts of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere where life is found

• 3 factors sustain earth’s life:

  • 1. One-way flow of high-quality energy from the sun, through living things in their feeding interactions, into envt as low-quality energy (heat dispersed into air or water at low temp), and eventually to outer space as heat

    • Keeps up with solar energy principle of sustainability

    • High-quality energy cannot be recycled

    • Greenhouse effect - as solar energy interacts with carbon dioxide and other gasses in troposphere it warms it, earth would be too cold without it

  • 2. Cycling of nutrients (atoms, ions, and molecules needed for survival) through parts of the biosphere

    • Earth’s fixed supply of nutrients must be continually recycled to support life in keeping with chemical cycling principle of sustainability

  • 3. Gravity allows planet to hold onto its atmosphere and helps to enable movement and cycling of chemicals through air, water, soil, and organisms

12-3

• Soil - complex mixture of eroded rock, mineral nutrients, decaying organic matter, water, air, and billions of living organisms (most decomposers)

• Soil formation begins when bedrock is slowly broken down into fragments and particles by physical, chemical, and biological processes - weathering

• Soil supplies most of nutrients needed for plant growth, purifies and stores water

• Soils that have developed over long periods of time - mature soils - contain horizontal layers (horizons) that have distinct texture and composition that vary depending on soil type

  • Mature soils have at least 3/4 of four possible horizons

• Roots of most plants and majority of soil’s organic matter are concentrated in soil’s 2 upper layers - O horizon - leaf litter and the A horizon - topsoil

  • These two layers teem with bacteria, fungi, earthworms, and small insects

• Bacteria and other decomposer microorganisms break down some of soil’s complex organic compounds into porous mixture of partially decomposed bodies of dead plants/animals - humus, and inorganic materials clay, silt, sand

• Soil moisture carrying dissolved nutrients is drawn up by the roots of plants and transported through stems and into leaves as part of earth’s chemical cycling principle of sustainability

• B horizon (subsoil) & C horizon (parent material) contain most of soil’s inorganic matter (broken down rock consisting of varying mixtures of sand, slit, clay, gravel; much is transported by water from the A horizon, C horizon lies on base of parent material (bedrock)

• Spaces/pores btwn solid organic and inorganic particles in upper and lower soil layers contain varying amounts of air (nitrogen + oxygen gas) and water; plant roots use oxygen for cellular respiration

• As long as O & A horizons are anchored by vegetation, soil layers as a whole act as a sponge (store water + nutrients) and release them in nourishing trickle

• Topsoil is renewed very slowly meaning that it can be depleted

14-1

• Geology - science devoted to study of dynamic processes taking place on earth’s surface and in interior

• Interior separated into 3 major concentric zones:

  • Core - earth’s innermost zone, extremely hot and solid inner part, surrounded by thick layer of molten rock

  • Mantle - surrounds core, made of solid rock that can be soft and pliable at very high temperatures, outermost part is solid rock

  • Crust - outermost and thinnest zone of solid material, consists of continental crust and oceanic crust (makes up 71% of earth’s crust) 

• Asthenosphere - zone under the mantle, volume of hot partly melted rock

• Convection cells/currents generated by heat within core and mantle that slowly move large volumes of rock and heat in loops within the mantle

• Lithosphere - combination of crust and outermost part of mantle, we find mineral resources in this zone

• Mineral - naturally occurring chemical element or inorganic compound that exists as a solid with a regularly repeating internal arrangement of its atoms or ions, nonrenewable resource

• Mineral resource - concentration of one or more minerals in the earth’s crust that we can extract and process into raw materials and useful products at an affordable cost

• Minerals consisting of a single chemical element - mercury, gold, rare-earth metals such as lanthanum

• Most of the mineral resources we use occur as inorganic compounds formed by various combinations of elements - salt, quartz, rare-earth oxides - lanthanum oxide

• Rock - solid combination of one or more minerals found in earth’s crust

  • Limestone and quartzite contain only 1 mineral

  • Most rocks consist of two or more minerals (granite)

  • Deposits of rare earths typically contain mixture of metals and oxides that are difficult and costly to separate from one another and to purify to an acceptable level

• 3 types of rock:

  • 1. Sedimentary rock - made of sediments (dead plant and animal remains and tiny particles of weathered and eroded rocks)

    • Sediments transported by water, wind, gravity to downstream, downwind, downhill, underwater sites where they are deposited in layers that accumulate over time

    • Increasing weight and pressure converts sedimentary layers into rock - sandstone and shale, dolomite and limestone, lignite and bituminous coal

  • 2. Igneous rock - forms below or on earth’s surface under intense heat and pressure when magma wells up from earth’s mantle and then cools and hardens (granite and lava rock), igneous rock forms the bulk of earth’s crust but usually covered by sedimentary rock

  • 3. Metamorphic rock - forms when an existing rock is subjected to high temperatures, high pressures, chemically active fluids, or combination (slate, marble)

• Rock cycle - interaction of physical and chemical processes that change the earth’s rocks from one type to another, recycled over millions of year through erosion, melting, and metamorphism (rocks broken down, melted, fused together into new forms by heat and pressure, cooled, and sometimes recrystallized within earth’s interior and crust)

• We know how to find and extract more than 100 different minerals from earth’s crust (aluminum, gold, rare earths, earth oxides, sand, limestone)

• Ore - rock containing large enough concentration of particular mineral to make it profitable for mining and processing

• High-grade ore - contains a large concentration of the desired mineral

• Low-grade ore - contains a smaller concentration of the desired mineral

• Nonrenewable mineral resources are used for many purposes 

  • Making computer chips 

  • Aluminum is structural material

  • Steel is essential material in buildings, machinery, motor vehicles

  • Manganese, cobalt, chromium used in steel alloys

  • Copper used to make electrical and communications wiring, plumbing pipes

  • Gold is component of electrical equipment, tooth fillings, jewelry, coins, medical implants

  • Molybdenum used to harden steel and make it more resistant to corrosion

  • Nonmetallic mineral resources - sand used to make glass, bricks, concrete, gravel used for roadbeds and make concrete, limestone crushed to make concrete and cement, phosphate salts used to make inorganic fertilizers and detergents

14-5

• Tectonic plates - huge rigid plates that make up the lithosphere and move extremely slowly atop the asthenosphere

• Much geological activity at earth’s surface takes place at boundaries between tectonic plates as they separate, collide, or grind against each other

• Volcano - occurs where magma rising in a plume through the lithosphere reaches earth’s surface through central vent or long crack called fissure, magma that reaches earth’s surface is called lava and builds into a cone

  • 1. Form along boundaries of earth’s tectonic plates when one plate slides under or moves away from another plate, convergent boundaries w/subduction zones, divergent boundaries, hotspots

  • 2. Erupt releasing large chunks of lava rock, ash, liquid lava, gasses

  • 3. Dangerous but results in formation of mountains and lakes, contribute to fertile soils, through eruption cones have been built to form islands

  • 4. We can use historical records, geological measurements, and monitoring devices to protect ourselves from volcanic eruptions

• Faults are formed when immense stress and pressure is put on rock within crust causing breakage and shifting of the rock

• Earthquake - when there is abrupt movement on an existing fault, energy that has accumulated over time is released in the form of vibrations called seismic waves, that move in all directions through the surrounding rock, convergent subduction zones, divergent boundaries, transform boundaries

  • 1. Seismic waves move upward and outward from eq’s focus like ripples

  • 2. Scientists measure magnitude of seismic waves, seismograph used to measure amplitude of seismic waves

  • 3. Richter scale used on which each unit has an amplitude 10 times greater than next smaller unit, eq’s are insignificant (<4.0), minor (4.0-4.9), damaging (5.0-5.9), major (7.0-7.9), great (>8.0)

  • 4. Effects: shaking, permanental vertical/horizontal displacement of a part of crust, dangerous for people and constructions

  • 5. Examining historical records and make geological measurements to reduce loss of life and property (figuring out where to live and making construction more earthquake resistant)

  • 6. Largest eq was in Chile 9.5 (May 22, 1960)

• Tsunami - series of large waves generated when part of the ocean floor suddenly rises or drops

  • 1. Caused by when faults in ocean floor move up or down as a result of underwater eq, landslides

  • 2. Also called tidal waves, travel fast and far across the ocean, in deep water waves are very far apart

  • 3. As tsunami approaches coast with its shallower waters it slows down, wave crests squeeze closer together, and heights grow rapidly, hit ca coast as a series of towering walls of water

  • 4. Largest tsunami was when underwater eq 9.15 magnitude caused tsunami that killed 279,900 people and devastated many coastal areas in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, South India, eastern Africa, displaced 1.8 million people (December 2004)

  • 6. In 2011 large tsunami generated 3-story-high waves that killed almost 19,000 people, displaced more than 300,000, destroyed/damaged 125,000 buildings

• Scientists have built networks of ocean buoys and pressure recorders on the ocean floor to collect data that can be relayed to tsunami emergency warning centers