Term
| The locations and types of plate boundaries in the world. |
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Definition
| There are 15 major tectonic plates, with most having both ocean and continent. At divergent plate boundaries, magma surging up towards the surface pushes two plates apart, creating new crust as it cools and spreads. Ex: Mid-Atlantic Ridge. A transform plate boundary is when two plates slip and grind along one another, creating friction that spawns earthquakes and slipstrike faults. Ex: San Andreas Fault. A convergent plate boundary is when two plates collide. Subduction is when an oceanic plate goes underneath a less dense continental plate, which causes the crust to heat up and become magma that may create volcanic eruptions. Two continental plates colliding cause uplift and mountains. |
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Term
| The amounts and locations of fresh water on the globe |
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Definition
| The oceans hold 97% of all water on the globe. 2/3 of the worlds fresh water is inaccessible in glaciers, snowfields, and ice caps. Considerable less than 1% of the planet's water is in a form that we can readily use. |
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Term
| carbon cycle-- sinks, processes involved, and biotic and abiotic factors involved |
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Definition
Processes- Producers pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and out of surface water to use in photosynthesis. Photosynthesis breaks the bonds in CO2 and water to produce oxygen and carbohydrates. Autotrophs use some of these carbs to fuel their own respiration and release CO2 into oceans and atmosphere. Plants are a major resevoir for carbon. When organisms die and are buried by mud, their soft tissues may eventually make fossil fuels. Sedimentary rock is the largest single resevoir of carbon. The oceans are the second largest resevoir of carbon. |
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Definition
| Makes up 78% of the atmosphere. Nitrogen gas (N2) is chemically inert and cannot cycle out of the atmosphere into living organisms without assistance. Nitrogen must be fixed, or combined with hydrogen in nature to form ammonia (NH3), whose water-soluble ions of ammonium (NH4+) can be taken up by plants. Nitrogen fixation can be accomplished with lightning or nitrogen fixing bacteria. Nitrification is when ammonium ions are converted into nitrite ions (NO2-), then into nitrate ions (NO3-). Plants can also use this. Animals consume the plants and return the nitrogen to the soil. Then denitrifying bacteria convert nitrates in soil or water to gaseous nitrogen. |
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Definition
| Most of the earth's phosphorous is contained within rocks and released only by weathering. Phosphates in water settle to the bottom and form sedimentary rocks and reenter the lithosphere. |
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Term
| the effects of overgrazing of grasslands |
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Definition
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| She wrote the book Silent Spring on the detrimental effects of herbicides on the environment. The book triggered an environmental movement and an outcry for greener products. |
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| The man who lived in the Sierra Mountains that was a devout transcendentalist and environmental advocate. He founded many parks and met with Roosevelt to look for a way to preserve the area he loved. |
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| The doomsayer of London that predicted that if humans did not change their ways and stop population growth, we would be overcome by war, disease, and famine. |
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| The first chief of the US Forest Service. He believed in the conservation ethic, which is that people should put natural resources to use but we should use them wisely. |
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Definition
| Proposed the land ethic, which holds that humans should not alter with or mess with environmental systems, |
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Term
| rules of island biogeography and impact on species diversity |
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Definition
| larger islands closer to other like ecosystems will probably have higher species diversity than a small island that was completely isolated. |
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Term
| methods of cleaning up oil spills |
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Definition
| bioremediation, phytoremediation, and skimming or burning the oil |
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Definition
| Cultural placement of women, sexism, poverty, education, access to medical care, disease, life expectancy, access to contraceptives, family planning, cultural importance of children |
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| methods of wastewater treatment and solid waste disposal |
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