Question | Answer |
weathering | A chemical or physical process in which rocks exposed to the weather are worn down by water, wind, or ice. |
erosion | the wearing away of the land surface by wind, water, ice or other geologic agents. Erosion occurs naturally from weather or runoff but is often intensified by human land use practices. |
deposition | the geological process whereby material (sediment) is added to a landform and builds up on the Earth's surface - the direct opposite of erosion |
rock cycle | model that describes how rocks slowly change from one form to another through time |
conservation | careful use of resources to reduce damage to the environment through such methods as composting and recycling materials |
renewable resource | resources that can be replaced in a short amount of time |
inexhaustible resource | will always be around during our lifetime |
non-renewable resource | resources that nature cannot replace within a human life span |
natural resource | resources supplied by nature (water, wood, coal, etc) |
climate | average weather pattern in an area over a long period of time: can be classified by temperature, humidity, precipitation, and vegetation |
lunar cycle | phases of the moon which occurs over a period of 29.5 days |
revolution | Earth’s yearlong elliptical orbit around the Sun |
rotation | spinning of Earth on its imaginary axis, which takes about 24 hours to complete and causes day and night to occur |
global warming | increase in the average global temperature of the Earth |
greenhouse effect | natural heating that occurs when certain gases in Earth’s atmosphere, such as methane, CO2, and water vapor, trap heat |
plate tectonics | theory that Earth’s crust and upper mantle are broken into plates that float and move around on a plasticlike layer of the mantle |
Big Bang Theory | the universe started as very small, dense, and hot about 13 billion years ago and then expanded into our modern day universe and continues to expand today |
constellation | group of stars that forms a pattern in the sky |
galaxy | large group of stars, dust and gas held together by gravity; can be elliptical, spiral or irregular |
light year | distance light travels in one year - about 9.5 trillion km - which is used to record distances between stars |
carbon cycle | the process by which carbon is taken up by plants and animals and returned to the environment in a continuous cycle; plants take in carbon dioxide & release oxygen; animals take in oxygen & release carbon dioxide |
CFC's | chlorofluorocarbon - a chemical found in many manufacturing processes and believed to be responsible for depleting the Earth’s diminishing ozone layer |
ozone layer | layer of the stratosphere with a high concentration of ozone; absorbs most of the Sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation |
water cycle | the cycle of water movement from the atmosphere to the earth and back to the atmosphere through condensation, precipitation, evaporation, and transpiration |
nitrogen cycle | a continuous series of natural processes by which nitrogen successively passes through air, soil, and organisms involving principally organism decay, nitrogen fixation, nitrification, and denitrification |
sea floor spreading | Hess' theory that new seafloor is formed when magma is forced upward toward the surface at a mid-ocean ridge |