Chapter 1 Flashcards
Define Science:
is a systematic
process of understanding and
explaining the natural world
Scientists
assume the natural
world behaves in a consistent
and predictable manner and is
comprehensible
Scientist cont.
- Physical processes operating today were the
same in the past - Scientists can discover these processes
- These processes can be used to predict future
events
What do scientist use to DO science?
The scientific method
What are the different steps on the Scientific Method?
-make observations of the natural world - formulate hypotheses to explain how and why the natural world works collect, analyze, and classify facts and data and conduct experiments using an orderly and logical process to test hypotheses -accept, reject, or modify hypotheses
Define Scientific Hypothesis:
-A scientific Hypothesis is a tentative, untested, inferred idea used to explain observed natural phenomena -Educated Guess
What is an example of a scientific hypothesis?
The Nebular Hypothesis
Define Scientific Theory:
-A scientific Theory is an objective, well tested, widely accepted coherent hypothesis that is supported by a large body of factual evidence and experimental testing - Explain natural phenomena - The Big Bang Theory
What is a Theory?
*The word “Theory” has different meanings to different people
*To most people a “Theory” commonly means a speculative or
colloquial view of something
*The media uses the term Theory in place of Hypothesis
*This leads to the widespread belief that scientific theories are little
more than unsubstantiated wild guesses
Scientific Laws
- Based on hypotheses
- Can usually be expressed mathematically
- Describes natural phenomena
Define Oceanography;
- an interdisciplinary science that
influences the entire planet and
covers a wide range of topics
Characteristics of the ocean:
- The Earth has one big ocean with many features
- The ocean and life in the ocean shape the features of Earth
- The ocean is a major influence on weather and climate
- The ocean made Earth habitable
- The ocean supports a great diversity of life and ecosystems
- The ocean and humans are inextricably interconnected
- The ocean is largely unexplored
Ocean Exploration History:
- January 23, 1960 The Bathyscaphe Trieste 35,814 feet Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard - March 26, 2012 The DEEPSEA CHALLENGE 35,576 feet James Cameron
How deep is the Mariana Trench?
36,070 feet deep
Ocean Facts:
- There are 5 Oceans and many Seas
- 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water
- 97% of all water on Earth’s surface is contained in
the ocean - More water is trapped within the Earth than exists
in the ocean and atmosphere - The average ocean depth is 12,451 feet
- There are 329 million cubic miles of water
- On a planetary scale the ocean is insignificant
The four principal ocean basins (plus an additional ocean) on Earth are the _______.
- Atlantic Ocean
- Pacific Ocean
- Indian Ocean
- Southern Ocean
- Arctic Ocean
The largest of the ocean basins, which currently covers more than half of the ocean surface, is the_____.
Pacific Ocean
The average depth of the world’s oceans is approximately ______.
3,682 meters (12,080 feet)
The sun and the rest of the solar system formed about 5 billion years ago from a huge cloud of dust and gas called a ____
Nebula
Which of the following statements regarding continental and oceanic crust is TRUE?
Continental crust is thicker and less dense than oceanic crust
Earth’s primordial atmosphere most likely included _____.
Carbon Dioxide, Water Vapor, Sulfur Dioxide and methane
Current scientific knowledge indicates that the most likely origin of most of Earth’s oceans was due to ____
Water vapor released from volcanic outgassing
(Age) Earth is about _____
4.6 billion years old.
Students sometimes ask…. Have humans ever explored the deepest ocean trenches? Could anything live there?
- Yes
- It was first done in January 1960, by US Navy Lt. Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard.
- Went down to the bottom of the challenger deep region of the mariana trench in the trieste.
- A deep diving bathyscaphe (bathos=depth, scaphe=small ship)
- 9906 meters (32,500) heard loud cracking
- unnoticed 7.6 centimeter (3 inch) plexiglass viewing port cracked
- Reached the bottom at 10,912 (35,800 feet) which is a record depth for human descent
- Small organisms: a flatfish, shrimp, and some jellies
Students sometimes ask… How do we know about the internal structure of Earth?
- Humans have never actually seen the earth’s crust, however the internal structure of earth is being analyze by earthquakes that sends seismic waves through the deep interior of our planet.
- Seismic waves- change their speed and are bent and reflected as they move through zones having different properties.
- seismic waves travel slowly through areas of hotter rock and speed up through colder rock
- repeated analysis allowed researchers to construct a detailed three dimensional mode of earth’s interior.
- reveals the inner working of our planet.
Students sometimes ask… Have the oceans always been salty? Are the oceans growing more or less salty through time?
- Likely that oceans have always been salty
- water comes in contact w/ rocks of earth’s crust, some of the minerals dissolve
- new minerals are forming on the sea floor at the same rate as dissolved materials are added
- salt content of the ocean is in a “steady state,” meaning that it is not increasing or decreasing.
- Study the proportion of water vapor to chloride ion, in ancient marine rocks.
- Chloride ion is produced by out gassing and it forms part of the most common salts in the ocean
- the oceans salinity has been relatively constant through time.
