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SJCC Earth Vocab
Earth systems vocabulary test #1
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Abiotic | The nonliving components of an ecosystem |
| Asthenosphere | The weak, squishy layer found beneath the lithosphere where rock begins to melt as a result of increasing temperature. |
| Atmosphere | The envelope of gases that surrounds the Earth. |
| Biosphere | The area of the earth inhabiting living things. |
| Biotic | The living components of an ecosystem. |
| Carrying Capacity | The maximum number of individuals of a species that can be sustained by an environment without decreasing the capacity of the environment to sustain that same amount in the future. |
| Continental Crust | Thick outer surface of Earth, made from granite, that is not covered by water. |
| Continental Drift | The shifting and movement of lithospheric plates. |
| Convergent Plate Boundary | Area where two plates move toward each other, slowly colliding, causing active volcanism or the formation of mountains. |
| Core | The metallic, high density, innermost portion of the earth. |
| Crust | The thin, low density, out layer of the earth. |
| Divergent Plate Boundary | Area of huge fractures in a plate where they move apart, forming great rift valleys on continents and under the ocean. |
| Ecosphere | The physical environment that permits or facilitates the existence of the biosphere. |
| Environment | All of the components, characteristics, and conditions in the natural world that influence organisms, as well as the interactions between and among the organisms in the natural world. |
| Environmental Science | An interdisciplinary combination of basic sciences applied to the study of the environment. |
| Gaia Hypothesis | The interaction between the physical and biological system on the Earth's surface has led to a planetwide physiology which began more than 3 billion years ago and the evolution of which can be detected in the fossil record. |
| Geology | The scientific study of the earth, rocks, and minerals. |
| Geosphere | The physical environment of the earth that includes the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and the solid earth. |
| Hydrosphere | All of the water found on the surface of the earth and underground. |
| Igneous Rock | The solidified molten rock on the surface or deep underground. |
| Jovian Planets | The outermost planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune |
| Lithosphere | The crust and outermost part of the earth's mantle |
| Mantle | The molten rocky area of the earth found between the crust and the core. |
| Metamorphic Rock | Rock that has been altered as a result of exposure to high heat and pressure. |
| Oceanic Crust | Thin portion of the earth's surface, made from volcanic rock called basalt, that underlies the oceans. |
| Plate Margin | Area of plate interaction having the most violent and intense type of geologic activity |
| Plate Tectonics | The study of the movement and interactions of the lithospheric plates. |
| Plates | Large broken fragments of lithosphere. |
| Population Bomb | The doubling of the earth's population every few decades. |
| Regolith | The irregular loose blanket of rock debris on the surface of the earth. |
| Sedimentary Rock | Rock that forms as a result of deposition, consolidation, and cementation of unconsolidated rock and mineral fragments in low temperature and low pressure conditions near Earth's surface. |
| Subduction | Area where ocean crust is forced down into the mantle |
| Sustainability | The maximum number of people Earth can hold based on the availability of resources. |
| Sustainable Development | The ability of society to continue to develop its economy and social institutions and maintains its environment for an indefinite period of time. |
| Sustainable Economy | An economy that maintains its level of activity over time in spite of environmental processes. |
| Sustainable Ecosystem | The ability of an ecosystem to maintain its essential functions and properties. |
| Sustainable Resource Harvest | The availability of timber |
| Terrestrial Planets | The innermost planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars |
| Transform Plate Boundaries | Area where plates slide past one another, grinding their edges and causing earthquakes. |
| Urban Sprawl | The spreading outwards of a city from its suburbs to the low density rural land encouraging the dependency on cars. |
| Urbanization | The movement of people from the rural farms to the cities or suburbs. |
| Weathering | The continuous chemical alteration and mechanical breakdown of surface materials through exposure to the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. |
| Meteorology | The scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting. |
| El Nino | An irregularly occurring and complex series of climatic changes affecting the equatorial Pacific region and beyond every 2-7 years, characterized by the appearance of unusually warm, nutrient poor water off Norther Peru and Ecuador, in late December |
| Latitude | The angular distance of the location South or North of the Equator |
| Minerals | pure components of rocks |
| Rock Cycle | The transformation in rocks from one form to another |
| Gravitational attraction | Force of attraction between all masses in the universe |
| orbit | regular pattern of movement of objects through space |
| Climate Zones | Arctic, Temperate, and Tropic based on latitude |
| Globalization | Recognition that civilization can change the world at a global level |
| Slums | overcrowding of cities, forcing people to live close together |
| Renewable resource | A resource that can be replenished within a human lifetime |
| Climate | The average conditions of a certain place on Earth over the course of a year |
| Weather | Regional conditions at a certain point |
| Erosion | Soil, mud, and sand, are worn away by water or wind and deposited in another location |
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