Final Flashcards
(158 cards)
0
Q
Temperature at which relative humidity reaches 100%
A
Dew Point
1
Q
The water cycle
A
Hydrologic Cycle
2
Q
Cold and warm air masses collide
A
Frontal rainfall
3
Q
Moist air is pushed over a landform
A
Orographic rainfall
4
Q
The dry leeward side of the landform
A
Rainshadow rainfall
5
Q
Rapidly rising hot air, cools = rain
A
Conventional rainfall
6
Q
Upward flows of air from the surface in a Convectional rainstorm
A
Thermals
7
Q
A large section of air
A
Air mass
8
Q
The leading edge of an air mass
A
Front
9
Q
Most violent storm on earth for its size. Winds up to 300mph
A
Tornado
10
Q
Measures tornado intensity on a scale of 1 to 5
A
Fujita scale
11
Q
Tornados over water
A
Water spout
12
Q
Issued by the National Weather Service when atmospheric conditions exist where tornados could form
A
Tornado watch
13
Q
Issued by the National Weather Service when a tornado has been sighted
A
Tornado warning
14
Q
The center of a hurricane
A
Eye
15
Q
Sea water pushed inland by hurricane
A
Storm surge
16
Q
The largest compartment of liquid fresh water. (Within 1km/.62 miles, has 100 times the volume of all fresh water in rivers, lakes, reservoirs combined
A
Groundwater
17
Q
Area where rocks and soil are fill with water
A
Zone of saturation
18
Q
The top edge of the zone of saturation
A
Water table
19
Q
Water bearing rocks
A
Aquifers
20
Q
Area that adds water to aquifers
A
Recharge zone
21
Q
An aquifer that is trapped between layers of non aquifers, pressure builds and forces water upward
A
Artesian Well
22
Q
The height water is pushed up in an artesian well
A
Pieziometric level
23
Q
Worlds largest lake, 5,000ft deep. In Siberia
A
Lake Baykal
24
Stabilizes soil and holds back surface runoff
Wetlands
25
Due to Russian diversion of rivers, this water body has lost 60% of its volume
Aral Sea
26
The 3 Too's of water
Too little, too much, too dirty
27
Fresh water is taken and replaced by ocean's salt water
Salt water intrusion
28
Water table dips down around a heavily pumped well
Cone of depression
29
This aquifer beneath the Great Plains is going dry
High Plains Aquifer (Ogallala)
30
Has sunk 33ft in the last 50 years
San Joaquin Valley, CA
31
All land drained by a system or river
Watershed
32
At this point the water flows toward the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico
Continental divide
33
Groundwater dissolves limestone beneath the surface, the surface above collapses creating sinkholes (Bluegrass Basin - Lexington, KY)
Karst Topography
34
#1 reason for US wetland destruction
Agriculture
35
Bulldozing steams, vegetation, and straightening steam channels
Streambed channelization
36
Loss of Water from leaves
Transpiration
37
Loss of water from soil and the leaves of plants
Evapotranspiration
38
People who own land along streams have rights to use it
Riperian rights
39
Occurs when steam channel is clogged with sediment, breaks channel into many small channels- makes navigation impossible
Braiding
40
A specific place where water pollution is occurring
Point source
41
NO specific place where water pollution is occurring
Non-point source
42
Our greatest use of water
Agriculture
43
Measures levels of naturally occurring intestinal bacterium and gives water-quality personnel the chance to measure levels of fecal contamination in water
Coli form count
44
Amount of oxygen required by decomposers
Biological oxygen demand
45
Oxygen levels decline downstream
Oxygen sag
46
1884, introduced into Florida from South America. 10 plants can grow to 600,000 in 8 months
Water hyacinth
47
#1 anthropogenic source of plant nutrients in fresh water
Inorganic fertilizers
48
#2 anthropogenic source of due to synthetic phosphates
Laundry detergents
49
Cling to dirt, holding it in suspension until the water washes it away
Tripolyphosphates
50
Excessive nutrients supports blooms of deadly aquatic microorganisms in polluted waters near the shore
Toxic Tides
51
Kesterson Marsh, CA: this poisoned and killed thousands of migratory birds in the 1980s
Selieneum and arsenic
52
Hot water from power plants cooling towers enter streams. Suddenly change in water temperature kills life, alters fish spawning cycles
Thermal pollution
53
Sulfur compounds in coal reacts with water and oxygen to make sulfuric acid
Acid mine drainage
54
Steel mfg. cent in the Ural Mts. 90% of children suffer from birth defects and pollution related illnesses
Magnitogorsk
55
Capital of Slovakia, dumps 2 billion gallons of industrial and municipal wastes into the Danube annually
Bratislava
56
Sewage treatment plants reduce amounts of organic solids by settling, filtering, and screening
Primary treatment plants
57
More filtering and screening and aeration to accelerate bacterial breakdown of wastes
Secondary treatment
58
Activated carbon used to bind chemicals, advanced filtering (reverse osmosis), chlorine added to kill disease-transmitted bacteria
Tertiary treatment
59
Absorbs dissolved organic materials and toxic metals from water
Duckweed
60
Sludge combined with clay and shale, looks like ordinary brick
Biobricks
61
Sea animals play with it, 400,000 die annually and 160,000 metric tons are dumped into the oceans annually
Plastic pollution
62
Assumes the same physical processes active today have been operating throughout geologic time
Uniformitarianism
63
Belief the earth is young, major events created plains, mountains, hills, canyons
Catastrophism
64
Transition zone between layers within the earth
Discontinuity
65
Transition zone between the outer core and Lower mantle. Gutenburg is buried deep
Gutenberg discontinuity
66
Transition zone between the uppermost mantle and crust
Moho discontinuity
67
43 to 155 miles: layer of molten "plastic-like" rock upon hide tectonic plates float
Asthenosphere
68
This rock is "fire formed" from hot magma
Igneous rock
69
Hot molten rock within the earth
Magma
70
Hot molten rock that reaches the surface of the earth
Lava
71
These rocks are formed from organic materials of bits of other rocks and pressed together by pressure
Sedimentary rocks
72
Cementation, compaction and hardening of sediments into sedimentary rocks
Lithification
73
Igneous, sedimentary rocks that haven been changed by heat or pressure
Metamorphic rock
74
Hot magma "cooks" adjacent rock, changing them into metamorphic rocks
Contact metamorphism
75
Metamorphic rocks with streaks or lines of minerals
Foliated
76
According to continental drift theory, the One continent
Pangea
77
Continental drift theory: northern 1/2 of the One continent
Laurasia
78
Continental drift theory: southern 1/2 of One continent
Gondwana
79
Magma flows to the surface along mid-ocean ridges
Sea floor spreading
80
Denser oceanic rock is pushed underneath the less dense continental rock
Subduction
81
Worlds deepest trench, -36,198ft
Mariana's trench
82
The huge rocks that float on the asthenosphere
Plate tectonics
83
Chemical sediments left behind when water evaporates. Gypsum (white powder in wallboard) sodium chloride (table salt)
Evaporites
84
The area in the surface directly above where the earthquake occurred
Epicenter
85
Within the earth, where the earthquake occurs
Hypocenter
86
Giant sea waves can move 600mph, 100ft high
Tsunami
87
Main source of energy today
Fossil fuels
88
Can be extracted with today's technology
Reserves
89
Includes all stocks that are currently too expensive to extract
Resource base
90
Most abundant and widely distributed fossil fuel
Coal
91
Worlds leading coal provider
China
92
#1 in US in coal production, 25% low sulfur coal
Wyoming
93
Coal trains with 100 cars carry coal to power plants
Unit train
94
Hard coal
Anthracite
95
Soft coal
Bituminous
96
Brownish low BTUs
Hignite
97
Progressive debilitating disease caused by coal dust
Black lung
98
Sinkholes caused by underground mines
Land subsistence
99
Sulfuric acid formed from water, air, and sulfides in mines, kills plants and animals and slows bacterial decay
Acid mine drainage
100
42 gallons
Barrel of oil
101
Drilled 1st US oil well in PA. 69ft down
E.L. Drake
102
Asphalt-like hydrocarbons from tar sands
Bitumen
103
Northern Alberta, Canada. Worlds largest commercial production of synthetic crude oil (has more oil in sand than Saudi Arabia which has 20% of worlds oil reserves) supplies 10% of Canadian oil
Athabasca tar sands
104
Solid hydrocarbons found in oil shale - too expensive to use
Kerogen
105
Least abundant fossil fuel
Natural gas
106
Mixture of water and hazardous chemicals pumped through pipes to force gas out of shale
Fracking
107
US nuclear power play released radioactive gas in 1979
Three Mile Island
108
Moscow Ohio to be nuclear, at last minute switched to coal
Zimmer plant
109
1986 core blows up sending radiation around the world
Chernobyl
110
Fuels nuclear power plants
Uranium 235 (U-235)
111
Splitting of U-235 atoms to create energy
Fission
112
Holds the U-235
Fuel rods
113
Fuel rods and control rods in a reactor vessel, bathed in water
Reactor core
114
4ft thick concrete shell surrounds reactor core
Containment building
115
80% of worlds 420 nuclear plants cooled with water
Light water reactor
116
Nuclear power plants that are cooled by forms of carbon
Heavy water reactor
117
Radioactive uranium ore dumped near mine sites and rivers
Mill tillings
118
Nuclear reaction that occurs On the sun, can we copy it?
Fusion
119
Nevada: controversial storage facility for US nuclear waste
Yucca mountain
120
Wood, plant material, dung, used for heating and cooking
Biomes
121
Small scale plants takes methane gas from sewage and feedlot manure - used for cooking and heating in china
Digestors
122
Methyl alcohol can be produced from biomass, coal, natural gas
Methanol
123
Ethyl alcohol made from gain, sugar, cane, milk products
Ethanol
124
Unleaded fuel: 90% gas, 10% ethanol
Gasohol
125
Uses sugar cane to produce ethanol
Brazil
126
Allow fish to move around dams
Fish ladder
127
#1 in wind power
Germany
128
Used fans, pumps, to circulate heat
Active systems
129
Collect, store, transfer heat without mechanical assistance
Passive systems
130
Large solar collectors that provide heat to drive steam turbines to produce electricity
Heliostats
131
Concerts solar radiation directly into electricity
Photovoltaic cells
132
Heat energy from the earths interior is used to generate energy
Geothermal energy
133
Using kinetic energy in oceans tides
Tidal energy
134
Low gas mileage, 44% of car purchases
SUV
135
Cars with combination of gas and electric motors
Hybrids
136
Discarded toxic materials that pose a threat to human health and environment
Hazardous wastes
137
Low value land sites, abandoned mines, swamps, floodplains
Open dumps
138
1930s excavates pit: filled and covered with soil
Sanitary landfill
139
Water flows through garbage or hazardous waste and forms this
Leachate
140
Illegal dumping of wastes
Midnight dumping
141
Hooker Chemical Co. Toxic waste dump, school and houses built on site in 1974-1978. 50% of babies born had birth defects
Love Canal
142
Dioxins sprayed on roads to keep dust down, levels up to 300 times higher than levels considered dangerous after long exposure
Times Beach, Missouri
143
Used to hold toxic wastes
Open lagoons
144
Methy Isocyanate (MIC) leaks, 3,000 people die, 30,000 permanently disabled, 25,000 severely injured
Bhopal, India
145
#1 hazardous waste disaster
Chernobyl
146
Causes cancer
Carcinogen
147
In old electric transformers
PCBs
148
Create in 1980 to clean up worst hazardous waste dumps
Superfund
149
Tearing discarded electronics apart to recycle usable wire or other electronic components
Demanufacturing
150
Must include clay liner/plastic liner, clay dike and cap, leachate collection and drainage, system monitoring wells to check for leaks
Secure landfill
151
Wastes are pumped into bedrock below 2,000ft below groundwater zone
Deep well injection
152
Neighborhoods resisting incinerators, garbage transfer stations, landfills
NIMBY (not in my back yard)
153
Secret Cold War uranium processing plant heavily pollutes area
Fernald, Ohio
154
1980 radical group of environmentalist took active steps to protect the environment (illegal)
Earth First
155
Sabotage in the name of the environment
Eco terrorism
156
Environmental group founded by John Muir (wilderness advocate)
Sierra Club
157
Is the expense of doing something worth the gain that is provided
Cost benefit ratio
