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APS Social Studies
The Earth
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Mercury Venus Earth Mars | the four planets closest to the sun |
| inner planets | solid, rocky crusts |
| outer planets (except Pluto) | large diameter, less dense, gaseous stuctures, distant from the sun |
| The asteroid belt | located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter |
| Asteroid | small irregularly shaped, planetlike objects found mainly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter in a region called the Asteroid Belt |
| Comets | made of icy dust particles and frozen gases,look like bright balls with long feathery tails |
| Meteroids | pieces of space debris, chunks of rock and iron |
| hydrosphere | oceans, lakes, rivers and oter bodies of water. 70% of our planet's surface |
| lithosphere | 30% of earth's surface is land including continents and islands, also including ocean basins, or the land beneath the oceans.Also known as the earth's crust |
| atmosphere | a layer of gases estending about 6,000 miles above the earth's surface. The atmosphere is composed of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and small amounts of argon and and other gases. |
| biosphere | all people, animals, and plants live on the earth's surface, close to the earth's surface, or in te atmosphere |
| landforms | the natural features of the earth's surface. The four major landforms are mountains, hills, plateaus, and plains. Others include valleys, canyons, and basins. Landforms often contain rivers, lakes, and streams. |
| continental shelf | The part of the continent that extends underwater. |
| Mount Everest | the highest point on earth, 29,035 feet above sea level |
| Dead Sea shoreline | the lowest dry land point at 1,349 feet below sea level |
| Mariana Trench | a long narrow underwater canyon 35,827 feet deep |
| inner core | super-hot solid, about 4,000 miles below the surface of the earth. Scientists believe that it is made up of iron and nickel under enormous pressure |
| outer core | liquid that surrounds the inner core about 1,400 miles thick. It is a band of melted iron and nickel, it begins about 1,800 miles below the surface of the earth. Temperatures reach 8,500 degrees farenheit. |
| mantle | next to the outer core it is a thick layer of hot, dense rock consisting of silicon, aluminum, iron, magnesium, oxygen, and other elements. This mixture continually rises, cools, sinks, warms up, and r ises again, releasing 80% of the heat generated from |
| Crust | a rocky shell forming the earth;s surface. Relatively thin layer of rock ranges from 2 miles thick under oceans to about 75 miles thick under mountains. It is broken into more than a dozen great slabs of rock called plates |
| continental drift | The theory that the continents were once joined and then slowly drifted apart into smaller continents |
| magma | molten rock pushed up from the mantle |
| plate tectonics | all of the activities which created many of the earth's physical features |
| subduction | a sea plate collides with a continental plate. The heavier sea plate dives beneath the lighter continental plate. The sea plate becomes molten lava |
| accretion | pieces of the earth's crust come together slowly as the sea plate slides under the continental plate |
| Spreading | sea plates pull apart allowing magma to well up |
| Folds | moving plates sometimes squeeze the surface until it buckles |
| faults | plates grind or slide past each other, creating cracks in the earth's crust |
| Earthquake | sudden violent movements of plates along a fault line |
| Ring of fire | the most earthquake-prone area on the planet. A zone of earthquake and volcanic activity surrounding the pacific ocean. Marks the boundary where the plates that cradle the Pacific meet the plates that hold the continents surrounding the Pacific |
| Weathering | the process that breaks down rocks on the earth's surface into smaller pieces. |
| Erosion | the wearing away of the earth's surface by wind, glaciers, and moving water |
| Wind Erosion | the movement of dust, sand, and soil from one place to another. |
| loess | a fertile, yellow-gray soil deposited by the wind |
| Moraines | large pile of rocks and debris left behind from receding glaciers |
| Water Erosion | The most significant cause of erosion from fast moving water-rain, rivers, streams, and oceans |
| The Water Cycle | regular movement of water from the oceans to the air to the ground and finally back to the oceans |
| Evaporation | changing of liquid water into vapor or gas |
| Condensation | when warm air cools it cannot retain all of its water vapor, so the excess water vapor changes into liquid water |
| Precipitation | When clouds gather more water than they can hold they release the moisture, which falls to the earth as rain, snow, or sleet |
| Oceans | 97% of the earth's water that circles the planet divided into 4 oceans |
| Sea, Gulf, and Bays | bodies of salt water smaller than oceans |
| Desalination | turning salt water into drinking water |
| Freshwater | only 3% of the earth's total water supply, and most is not available for human consumption. More thatn 2% is frozen in glaciers and ice caps. .5% is found beneath the erath's surface |
| Groundwater | freshwater that lies beneath the earth's surface, comes from rain and melted snow that filter through the soil and from water that seeps into the ground from lakes and rivers. |
| aquifer | an underground porous rock layer often saturated with water in the form of a stream |
Created by:
tbostwick
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