Ch. 3 Key Terms

Question 1

geosphere

Answer 1

any of the almost spherical concentric regions of matter that make up the earth and its atmosphere, as the lithosphere and hydrosphere.

Question 2

hydrosphere

Answer 2

all the waters on the earth’s surface, such as lakes and seas, and sometimes including water over the earth’s surface, such as clouds.

Question 3

crust

Answer 3

describes the outermost shell of a terrestrial planet. Earth’s crust is generally divided into older, thicker continental crust and younger, denser oceanic crust. … Earth has three layers: the crust, the mantle, and the core.

Question 4

mantle

Answer 4

the mostly-solid bulk of Earth’s interior. The mantle lies between Earth’s dense, super-heated core and its thin outer layer, the crust

Question 5

core

Answer 5

The central or innermost portion of the Earth, lying below the mantle and probably consisting of iron and nickel. It is divided into a liquid outer core,

Question 6

lithosphere

Answer 6

the rigid outer part of the earth, consisting of the crust and upper mantle

Question 7

asthenosphere

Answer 7

the upper layer of the earth’s mantle, below the lithosphere, in which there is relatively low resistance to plastic flow and convection is thought to occur.

Question 8

tectonic plate

Answer 8

is a massive, irregularly shaped slab of solid rock, generally composed of both continental and oceanic lithosphere. The variations in plate thickness are nature’s way of partly compensating for the imbalance in the weight and density of the two types of crust

Question 9

chemical weathering

Answer 9

disintegration of rocks, building materials caused by chemical reactions chiefly with water and substances dissolved in it rather than by mechanical processes.

Question 10

erosion

Answer 10

the process of eroding or being eroded by wind, water, or other natural agents.

Question 11

atmosphere

Answer 11

the whole mass of air that surrounds the earth

Question 12

troposphere

Answer 12

the lowest region of the atmosphere, extending from the earth’s surface to a height of about 3.7–6.2 miles, which is the lower boundary of the stratosphere.

Question 13

stratosphere

Answer 13

is an atmospheric layer composed of stratified temperature layers, with the warm layers of air high in the sky and the cool layers of air in the low sky, close to the planetary surface of the Earth.

Question 14

ozone

Answer 14

is an inorganic molecule with the chemical formula O ₃. It is a pale blue gas with a distinctively pungent smell. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic allotrope O ₂,

Question 15

radiation

Answer 15

is energy that comes from a source and travels through space at the speed of light. This energy has an electric field and a magnetic field associated with it, and has wave-like properties. You could also call radiation “electromagnetic waves”

Question 16

conduction

Answer 16

the process by which heat energy is transmitted through collisions between neighboring atoms or molecules.

Question 17

convection

Answer 17

the transfer of heat by movement of a fluid such as air

Question 18

greenhouse effect

Answer 18

the trapping of the sun’s warmth in a planet’s lower atmosphere.

Question 19

water cycle

Answer 19

the continuous movement of water within the Earth and atmosphere.

Question 20

evaporation

Answer 20

when a liquid turns into a gas

Question 21

condensation

Answer 21

is the process by which water vapor in the air is changed into liquid water

Question 22

precipitation

Answer 22

any liquid or frozen water that forms in the atmosphere and falls back to the Earth

Question 23

salinity

Answer 23

the concentrations of salts in water or soils

Question 24

fresh water

Answer 24

water containing less than 1,000 milligrams per liter of dissolved solids, most often salt

Question 25

biosphere

Answer 25

made up of the parts of Earth where life exists