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Nick Calderon ESPS
For Studying for finals
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Geosphere | any of the almost spherical concentric regions of matter that make up the earth and its atmosphere, as the lithosphere and hydrosphere. |
| Biosphere | the regions of the surface, atmosphere, and hydrosphere of the earth (or analogous parts of other planets) occupied by living organisms. |
| Cryosphere | The Cryosphere is the frozen water part of the Earth system |
| Hydrosphere | all the waters on the earth's surface, such as lakes and seas, and sometimes including water over the earth's surface, such as clouds. |
| Atmosphere | the envelope of gases surrounding the earth or another planet. |
| Plate Tectonics | a theory explaining the structure of the earth's crust and many associated phenomena as resulting from the interaction of rigid lithospheric plates that move slowly over the underlying mantle. |
| Divergent Boundaries | A tectonic boundary where two plates are moving away from each other and new crust is forming from magma that rises to the Earth's surface between the two plates. |
| Convergent Boundaries | A tectonic boundary where two plates are moving toward each other. If the two plates are of equal density, they usually push up against each other, forming a mountain chain. |
| Transform Boundaries | Many transform boundaries are found on the sea floor, where they connect segments of diverging mid-ocean ridges. California's San Andreas fault is a transform boundary. |
| Plate Boundary Zones | Plate boundary zones are the zones of interaction between adjacent plates where they collide, pull apart or slide past each other. These zones may be anything from a few kilometres to a few hundred kilometres wide. |
| Open System | a material system in which mass or energy can be lost to or gained from the environment. |
| Closed System | a closed system is a physical system that doesn't exchange any matter with its surroundings, and isn't subject to any force whose source is external to the system |
| Half-Lifes | the time taken for the radioactivity of a specified isotope to fall to half its original value. |
| Pangea | Pangaea or Pangea was a super-continent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from earlier continental units approximately 335 million years ago, and it began to break apart about 175 million years ago. |
| Crater | a large, bowl-shaped cavity in the ground or on the surface of a planet or the moon, typically one caused by an explosion or the impact of a meteorite or other celestial body. |
| Lithosphere | the rigid outer part of the earth, consisting of the crust and upper mantle. |
| Mantle | the region of the earth's interior between the crust and the core, believed to consist of hot, dense silicate rocks (mainly peridotite). |
| Crust | form into a hard outer layer. |
| Asthenosphere | the upper layer of the earth's mantle, below the lithosphere, in which there is relatively low resistance to plastic flow and convection is thought to occur. |
| Mesosphere | the region of the earth's atmosphere above the stratosphere and below the thermosphere, between about 30 and 50 miles (50 and 80 km) in altitude. |
| Core | the dense central region of a planet, especially the nickel–iron inner part of the earth. |
| Ejecta | material that is forced or thrown out, especially as a result of volcanic eruption, meteoritic impact, or stellar explosion. |
| Law of superposition | a basic law of geochronology, stating that in any undisturbed sequence of rocks deposited in layers, the youngest layer is on top and the oldest on bottom, each layer being younger than the one beneath it and older than the one above it. |
| Meteoroids | a small body moving in the solar system that would become a meteor if it entered the earth's atmosphere. |
| Meteorites | a meteor that survives its passage through the earth's atmosphere such that part of it strikes the ground. More than 90 percent of meteorites are of rock, while the remainder consist wholly or partly of iron and nickel. |
| Comet | a celestial object consisting of a nucleus of ice and dust and, when near the sun, a “tail” of gas and dust particles pointing away from the sun. |
| Asteroid | a small rocky body orbiting the sun. Large numbers of these, ranging in size from nearly 600 miles (1,000 km) across (Ceres) to dust particles, are found (as the asteroid belt ) especially between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter |
| Uniformitarianism | the theory that changes in the earth's crust during geological history have resulted from the action of continuous and uniform processes. |
| Relative age | The geologic age of a fossil organism, rock, or geologic feature or event defined relative to other organisms, rocks, or features or events rather than in terms of years. |
| Strata | a layer or a series of layers of rock in the ground. |
| Absolute age | the true age of a rock or fossil. |
| Radiometric Dating | a method of dating geological or archeological specimens by determining the relative proportions of particular radioactive isotopes present in a sample. |
| Carbon Dating | the determination of the age or date of organic matter from the relative proportions of the carbon isotopes carbon-12 and carbon-14 that it contains. |
| Geologic Time Scale | is a system of chronological dating that relates geological strata (stratigraphy) to time. |
| Isotope | each of two or more forms of the same element that contain equal numbers of protons but different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei, and hence differ in relative atomic mass but not in chemical properties |
| Subduction | the sideways and downward movement of the edge of a plate of the earth's crust into the mantle beneath another plate. |
| Trench | a long, narrow, deep depression in the ocean floor, typically one running parallel to a plate boundary and marking a subduction zone. |
| Volcano | a mountain or hill, typically conical, having a crater or vent through which lava, rock fragments, hot vapor, and gas are being or have been erupted from the earth's crust. |
| Erosion | the process of eroding or being eroded by wind, water, or other natural agents. |
| Plate Boundary | Earth's outer layer, the crust, is divided into a set of large moving plates. |
| Mid-Ocean Ridge | a long, seismically active submarine ridge system situated in the middle of an ocean basin and marking the site of the upwelling of magma associated with seafloor spreading. An example is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. |
| Convection | the movement caused within a fluid by the tendency of hotter and therefore less dense material to rise, and colder, denser material to sink under the influence of gravity, which consequently results in transfer of heat. |
| Sea-Floor Spreading | the formation of new areas of oceanic crust, which occurs through the upwelling of magma at midocean ridges and its subsequent outward movement on either side. |
| Mountains | a large natural elevation of the earth's surface rising abruptly from the surrounding level; a large steep hill. |
| Volcanic Arc | Volcanic arcs form as the result of rising magma formed by the melting of the downgoing plate. |
| Hot Spot | a small area or region with a relatively hot temperature in comparison to its surroundings. |
| Oceanic Crust | the relatively thin part of the earth's crust that underlies the ocean basins. It is geologically young compared with the continental crust and consists of basaltic rock overlain by sediments. |
| Continental Crust | the relatively thick part of the earth's crust that forms the large landmasses. It is generally older and more complex than the oceanic crust. |
| Ridge Push | Ridge push or sliding plate force is a proposed driving force for plate motion in plate tectonics that occurs at mid-ocean ridges. |
| Slab Pull | Slab pull is the portion of motion of a tectonic plate that can be accounted for by its subduction. |
| Fault | an extended break in a body of rock, marked by the relative displacement and discontinuity of strata on either side of a particular surface. |
| Matter | physical substance in general, as distinct from mind and spirit; (in physics) that which occupies space and possesses rest mass, especially as distinct from energy. |
| Energy | power derived from the utilization of physical or chemical resources, especially to provide light and heat or to work machines. |
| System | (in chronostratigraphy) a major range of strata that corresponds to a period in time, subdivided into series. |
| First Law of Thermodynamics | the branch of physical science that deals with the relations between heat and other forms of energy (such as mechanical, electrical, or chemical energy), and, by extension, of the relationships between all forms of energy. |
| Second law of Thernodynamics | The laws of thermodynamics describe the relationships between thermal energy, or heat, and other forms of energy, and how energy affects matter. |
| Convection | the movement caused within a fluid by the tendency of hotter and therefore less dense material to rise, and colder, denser material to sink under the influence of gravity, which consequently results in transfer of heat. |
| Nitrogen Cycle | the series of processes by which nitrogen and its compounds are interconverted in the environment and in living organisms, including nitrogen fixation and decomposition. |
| Nitrogen Fixation | the chemical processes by which atmospheric nitrogen is assimilated into organic compounds, especially by certain microorganisms as part of the nitrogen cycle. |
| Carbon Cycle | involving the incorporation of carbon dioxide into living tissue by photosynthesis and its return to the atmosphere through respiration, the decay of dead organisms, and the burning of fossil fuels. |
| Carbonate | a salt of the anion CO32–, typically formed by reaction of carbon dioxide with bases. |
| Photosynthesis | the process by which green plants and some other organisms use sunlight to synthesize foods from carbon dioxide and water |
| Cellular Respiration | Cellular respiration is a set of metabolic reactions and processes that take place in the cells of organisms to convert biochemical energy from nutrients into adenosine triphosphate |
| Phosphorus Cycle | The phosphorus cycle is the biogeochemical cycle that describes the movement of phosphorus through the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere |
| Water Cycle | the cycle of processes by which water circulates between the earth's oceans, atmosphere, and land, involving precipitation as rain and snow, drainage in streams and rivers, and return to the atmosphere by evaporation and transpiration. |
| Condensation | the conversion of a vapor or gas to a liquid. |
| Precipitation | the action or process of precipitating a substance from a solution. |
| Evaporation | the process of turning from liquid into vapor. |
| Ecology | the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings. |
| Abiotic | physical rather than biological; not derived from living organisms. |
| Biotic | relating to or resulting from living things, especially in their ecological relations. |
| Ecosystem | a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment. |
| Producer | An autotrophic organism that serves as a source of food for other organisms in a food chain. Producers include green plants, which produce food through photosynthesis, and certain bacteria |
| Consumer | a person or thing that eats or uses something. |
| Decomposer | an organism, especially a soil bacterium, fungus, or invertebrate, that decomposes organic material. |
| Carrying Capacity | the number of people, other living organisms, or crops that a region can support without environmental degradation. |
| Homeostasis | the tendency toward a relatively stable equilibrium between interdependent elements, especially as maintained by physiological processes. |
| Food Chain | a hierarchical series of organisms each dependent on the next as a source of food. |
| Food Web | a system of interlocking and interdependent food chains. |
| Energy Pyramid | An energy pyramid is a graphical model of energy flow in a community. The different levels represent different groups of organisms that might compose a food chain |
| Greenhouse Effect | the trapping of the sun's warmth in a planet's lower atmosphere due to the greater transparency of the atmosphere to visible radiation from the sun than to infrared radiation emitted from the planet's surface. |
| Global Warming | a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other pollutants. |
| Ozone | a colorless unstable toxic gas with a pungent odor and powerful oxidizing properties, formed from oxygen by electrical discharges or ultraviolet light. It differs from normal oxygen (O2) in having three atoms in its molecule (O3). |
| Weather | the state of the atmosphere at a place and time as regards heat, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc. |
| Climate | the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period. |
| Sustainability | avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance. |
| Renewable Resource | A renewable resource is a substance of economic value that can be replaced or replenished in the same or less amount of time as it takes to draw the supply down |
| Non renewable resource | A nonrenewable resource is a resource of economic value that cannot be readily replaced by natural means on a level equal to its consumption. Most fossil fuels, such as oil, natural gas and coal are considered non-renewable |
| Biodegradable | (of a substance or object) capable of being decomposed by bacteria or other living organisms. |
| Non-Biodegradable | Waste and pollution. a substance or chemical that is non-biodegradable cannot be changed to a harmless natural state by the action of bacteria, and may therefore damage the environment opposite biodegradable |
| Troposphere | the lowest region of the atmosphere, extending from the earth's surface to a height of about 3.7–6.2 miles (6–10 km), which is the lower boundary of the stratosphere. |
| Mesosphere | the region of the earth's atmosphere above the stratosphere and below the thermosphere, between about 30 and 50 miles (50 and 80 km) in altitude. |
| Stratosphere | the layer of the earth's atmosphere above the troposphere, extending to about 32 miles (50 km) above the earth's surface (the lower boundary of the mesosphere). |
| Thermosphere | the region of the atmosphere above the mesosphere and below the height at which the atmosphere ceases to have the properties of a continuous medium. The thermosphere is characterized throughout by an increase in temperature with height. |
| Albedo | the proportion of the incident light or radiation that is reflected by a surface, typically that of a planet or moon. |
| Natural Resources | materials or substances such as minerals, forests, water, and fertile land that occur in nature and can be used for economic gain. |
Created by:
NickCalderon