Exam 1

The scientific study of how the natural world works, how our environment affects us, and how we affect our environment.

Applied study of environmental problems using the principals of geology

An academic environmental science program that emphasizes the social sciences as well as the natural sciences.

Sustainability is a condition in which our actions do not cause lasting harm to the environment and are socially and economically beneficial as well so that people's needs today are met without impairing future generations' abilities to meet their own needs.

Natural resources that are replenished over short periods

These types of renewable resources may be used at sustainable rates, but they may become depleted if we consume them faster than they are replenished.

A nonrenewable natural resource, such as crude oil, natural gas, or coal, produced by the decomposition and compression of organic matter from ancient life. Fossil fuels have provided most of society's energy since the industrial revolution.

Expresses the cumulative area of biologically productive land and water required to provide the resources a person or population consumes and to dispose of or recycle the waste the person or population produces

bringing techniques, perspectives, and research results from multiple disciplines together into a broad synthesis

Environmental science is especially broad because it encompasses not only the natural sciences (disciplines that examine the natural world) but also the social sciences (disci- plines that address human interactions and institutions). Most environmental science programs focus more on the natural sciences, whereas programs that emphasize the social sci- ences often use the term environmental studies.

A technique for testing ideas with observations. Scientists of all persuasions broadly agree on fundamental elements of the process of scientific inquiry. If this process is not followed, the science may be flawed.

A valuable guard against faulty research contaminating the literature (the body of published studies) on which all scientists rely.

The Ecological Footprint of a person is calculated by adding up all of people's demands that compete for biologically productive space, such as cropland to grow potatoes or cotton, or forest to produce timber or to sequester carbon dioxide emissions.

Environmental Science: interdisciplinary study focusing on the environment and solving environmental problems

Environmental Studies: An academic environmental science program that emphasizes the social sciences as well as the natural sciences.

Environmental Geology: applied study of environmental problems using the principles of geology

Sustainability Studies: an interdisciplinary study focusing on sustainability.

The scientific study of Earth's physical features, processes, and history.

One of the three main categories of rock. Formed from cooling magma. Granite and basalt are examples of this rock.

Naturally occurring, inorganic solids with unique chemical compositions, regular atomic/crystalline structure, and characteristic physical properties.

Formed from other rocks that have undergone a solid-state (have not melted) transformation due to heat and pressure.

Formed by the deposition of sediment, evaporation, or decomposition of living things.

The area where tectonic plates converge or come together. Can result in subduction or continental collision. Compare divergent plate boundary; transform plate boundary.

where new crust is generated as the plates pull away from each other as magma rises towards the surface, a prime example is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

The area where two tectonic plates meet and slip and grind alongside one another, creating earthquakes. For example, the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate run along California’s San Andreas Fault.

A release of energy that occurs as

Earth relieves accumulated pressure between masses of lithosphere and that results in shaking at the surface.

Molten, liquid rock.

Magma that is released from the lithosphere and flows or spatters across Earth's surface.

A site where molten rock, hot gas, or ash erupts through Earth's surface, often creat- ing a mountain over time as cooled lava accu- mulates.

the underground focus point of an earthquake.

Point on Earth's surface directly above an earthquake's focus

The size of the earthquake

A number that characterizes the severity of ground shaking at that location by considering the effects ofthe shaking on people, on manmade structures, and on the landscape.

An immense swell, or wave, of ocean water triggered by an earthquake, volcano, or landslide that can travel long distances across oceans and inundate coasts.

The collapse and downhill flow of large amounts of rock or soil. A severe and sudden form of mass wasting.

The inner fluid layer of the earth - divided into inner (solid Fe) and outer (liquid Fe)

Minerals are like the components of a chocolate chip cookie. They are the chocolate chips, the flour, the butter, etc. Rocks are the chocolate chip cookie as a whole. It is made up of the components (in this case, minerals)

Hardness

Color

Cleavage (the way a rock breaks)

Luster (how light reflects)

Streak (what color residue it leaves behind if you scrape it on a ceramic piece)

4.543 billion years

along subduction zones

Ocean - Continental: Subduction

Ocean - Ocean: Subduction

Continental - Continental: Mountain Building

Epicenter is the location on the surface of the Earth directly above where the earthquake starts.

Focus (aka Hypocenter) is the location in the Earth where the earthquake starts.

Based on the total moment release of the earthquake. Moment is a product of the distance a fault moved and the force required to move it. It is derived from modeling recordings of the earthquake at multiple stations.

Magnitude - A measure of earthquake size that remains unchanged with distance from the earthquake.

Intensity - describes the degree of shaking caused by an earthquake at a given place and decreases with distance from the earthquake epicenter.

The main causes of natural disasters are tectonic shifts, lunar activities, deforestation, soil erosion, air pressure, ocean currents, pollution, global warming, mining, seismic waves, etc.

building roads and structures without adequate grading of slopes, poorly planned alteration of drainage patterns, and disturbing old landslides.

planning and zoning, floodplain protection, property acquisition and relocation, or public outreach projects.

V = √(g*d).

In ecology, an assemblage of all organisms and nonliving entities that occur and interact in a particular area at the same time.

The entire area of land from which water drains into a given river. Also called drainage basin.

The water from precipitation that flows into streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds, and (in many cases) eventually to the ocean.

The outer layer of Earth, consisting of crust and uppermost mantle and located just above the asthenosphere. More generally, the solid part of Earth, including the rocks, sediment, and soil at the surface and extending down many miles underground. Compare atmosphere; biosphere; hydrosphere.

The cumulative total of all the planet's living organisms and the nonliving portions of the environment they inhabit.

The layer of gases surrounding planet Earth.

All water — salt or fresh, liquid, ice, or vapor in surface bodies, underground, and in the atmosphere.

Encompasses the total human presence throughout the Earth system including our culture, technology, built environment, and associated activities

The condition of extremely low dissolved oxygen concentrations in a body of water.

When oxygen levels are at zero

The tendency of a system to maintain constant or stable internal conditions.

The energy or biomass that remains in an ecosystem after autotrophs have metabolized enough for their own maintenance through cellular respiration. Net primary production is the energy or biomass available for consumption by heterotrophs. Compare gross primary production; secondary production.

The conversion of a substance from a liquid to a gaseous form.

The release of water vapor by plants through their leaves.

Positive feedback systems in living things usually happen in response to a physiological stressor, such as blood clotting or childbirth.

Negative feedback systems in living things continuously regulate critical body processes including temperature, pH, and hormone regulation to maintain homeostasis.

Net primary productivity varies among ecosystems and depends on many factors. These include solar energy input, temperature and moisture levels, carbon dioxide levels, nutrient availability, and community interactions (e.g., grazing by herbivores) ‍

A geographic information system (GIS), or geographical information system, is any system that captures, stores, analyzes, manages, and presents data that are linked to location.

display spatial relationships and linear networks.

helps geologists to capture data in the field and to visualise it within the context of the surrounding topography.

A formula that represents how humans' total impact (I) on the environment results from the interaction among three factors: population (P), affluence (A), and technology (T ).

Phosphorus has no atmospheric component - only rock and water

Transform Plate Boundries

Continental - Continental plate movement

Heavier

lighter

A collision between two of Earth's tectonic plates, where one plate sinks into the mantle underneath the other plate.

where the crust is destroyed as one plate dives under another

divided into the lower (thicker elastic rock) and upper (partially melted rock, also called the asthenosphere)

The thin, brittle, hard rocky exterior. The crust and very upper mantle make up the lithosphere.

Convergent boundaries destroys the plates as one plate dives under another. Transform boundaries is where crust is neither produced nor destroyed as the plates slide horizontally past each other.

Convergent boundaries have plates that move towards each other, whereas divergent boundaries have plates that move away.

Coal, oil, natural gas made from broken down organic matter. Burning them for energy contributes to climate change by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. 

We can use it to determine how long people have to evacuate before the tsunami reaches the coast. 

Carbon Cycle

High temperature and high moisture.

Bodies shivering when cold is a negative loop.

Climate change due to ice melting and decreasing albedo causing warming which melts more ice is a positive loop. 

Transform - Plates move alongside one another (zigzag pattern)

Divergent - Plate pull away from one another.

Convergent - Plates move toward one another. Either forms mountains (continent-continent) or a subduction zone (ocean-ocean or ocean-continent).

Lithosphere, Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, Anthroposphere, Biosphere

At convergent boundary subduction zones. As one plate is pushed down into the mantle it melts, the magma then rises to the surface and forms a volcano.

pyroclastic flows