Chapter 1 Topic 2 Flashcards
What are the four spheres the earth is made of?
The geosphere, the hydropshere, the atmospehre, and the biosphere
Where were ingrediants for life stored? How did they leave their storage?
The ingrediants for life CHNOPS, were moved from the geosphere initially through volcanism to reach the atmosphere and then later in earths history weathering when water first occured.
What are some mechanisms we use to move CHNOPS from the geosphere?
plate tectonics, hotspots, volcanism, deep sea thermal vents
What is the geosphere?
Is earth’s rock
What is the hydropshere
All water on earth
What is the atmosphere?
Is the air we breathe all around us
What is the biosphere
Is all living things
How did organism extract ingredients from life?
They extracted them from the hydrosphere and atmosphere to build skeletons and tissues
What are movements between spheres called?
They are called biogeochemical cycles
Name three biogeochemical cycles
The water cycle, the carbon cycle, and the nitrogen cycle
What is the hydrologic cycle?
Is just the water cycle, a biogeochemical cycle, and is the transfer of water among the spheres.
Is the hydrologic cycle a smooth cycle?
The hydrologic cycle is not smooth and continuous, but a stop and go process.
Water is temporarily stored in one of several major reservoirs before it is transferred to another
What are reservoirs in the hydrologic cycle?
lakes, rivers, ground water, oceans, vegetation, atmosphere
Where is the water on earth, what are the relative ratios of the reservoirs of water?
Oceans are biggest reservoir
Glaciers are second biggest
Groundwater, lakes, rivers, soil moisture and moisture in atmosphere are smallest
Why is water salty?
Because of minerals such as halite, runs over the geosphere and picks salt up.
How many diff types of ppt is there?
19
How does water move from resevoir to resevoir? Name all processes
Does this through diff processes such as evaporation, precipitation, transpiration, infiltration (water seeps into tree roots), runoff, and ground water flow
What does the rate of transfer between water resevoirs depend on?
Depends on temperature, wind, and relative humidity
What does the carbon cycle describe?
cycle describes how carbon moves between the biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere and
atmosphere.
Can carbon be created or destroyed?
No, carbon on earth has been here since earth formed- carbon comes from star dust. All carbon in our bodies gets recycled.
Carbon is the what of many mlcls? Give examples
Is the building block of many mlcls such as CO2, ATP, and Glucose, and amino acids and dna
How does carbon enter the biosphere from the atmosphere in terms of plants?
Co2 in the atmosphere is consumed by plants which is then used to make oxygen and sugar through photosynthesis
When animals consume plants what do they exhale?
Co2, reverse of photosynthesis- respiration takes carbon and puts it into atmopshere form biosphere
How does methane leave the biosphere and enter the atmosphere?
When cows eat plants they burp and fart which produces methane into the atmosphere.
How else can CO2 leave the biosphere and enter the atmosphere (in terms of plants)
The plants can die and decompose releasing it’s co2 back into the atmosphere
What happens if a plant becomes buried when it dies?
It fossilizes and becomes coal, preventing the plant form decaying- this put carbon from biosphere into geosphere again.
What is coal?
This a very good carbon resvoir, and an important natural material (ie fossil fuels)
How can the biosphere move carbon to the geosphere?
Through fossilization of plants to make coal.
How can carbon move from the geosphere to the atmosphere- industrially?
Through burning of fossil fuels such as coal- does an oxidation rxn releasing co2 into air.
How can carbon that entered atmosphere (from either plant decay, animal/plant respiration, and fossil fuels) enter the hydrosphere?
They dissolve into water bodies.
Can hydrosphere release carbon into atmosphere?
Yes, can do this directly through diffusion
What is the dissolved carbon in the ocean become?
Becomes CaCo3
How does the biosphere use CaCo3
The sea life uses it to create tissues and structures
How does the biosphere release carbon into the hydrosphere?
After sea life dies, they decompose and release carbon back into the ocean
How else does the biosphere release carbon into the geosphere (in terms of the ocean)
Sea life fossilizes into limestone on ocean floor
How is the carbon cycle similar to the water cycle?
Just like water in the hydrologic cycle, the carbon cycle is a stop and go process
Describe all processes on slide 30 from your head
Name all the carbon resevoirs from biggest to smallest
sediment and rocks
deep ocean
ocean mixed layer
soils
vegetation
atmosphere
Which rock type store most of the worlds carbon?
Lime stone (oceans) are bigger fossils fuels than coal as ocean has more surface area and life than the earth and can more easily be fossilized.
What kind of compounds can carbon form?
Organic (Proteins
Carbohydrates
Fats
DNA
)
and inorganic (CaCO3 and CO2)
Name all organic carbon resevoirs and why they might be organic?
soils, vegetation- as carbon comes from dead plants or is in alive plants
Name all inorganic carbon resevoirs
atmosphere, ocean mixed layer, and deep ocean
Name the resevoir thats both inorganic and organic C?
Sediments and rocks- coal being organic and calcium carbonate (lime stone) being inorganic.
Does the carbon change from organic to inorganic when moving across resevoirs?
Yes! Plants are organic but when decomposed leave as inorganic for example, inorganic carbon enter plants when can fosislize and become organic stores of coal.
What are rates of carbon exchange referred as?
They’re referred to as flux
What determines the rate of carbon flux?
How large the resevoir size is, the larger the resevoir- the larger it takes to exchange all of its carbon w another resevoir
Name the rate of flux for small surface resevoirs, deep ocean resevoirs, and sedimentary and rock resevoirs
Small surface reservoirs exchange all of their C with one another in a few years. (600 GT / 100 GT/y = 6y)
Surface ocean fully exchanges its carbon with atmosphere in ~10 years (1000 GT/ 74.6 GT/y =13.4 y)
Deep ocean partially isolated form surface ocean by temperature differences; exchanges C with surface ocean in >1000 years (38,000 GT/ 37 GT/y = 1027 y)
C buried in seds and rocks takes
>100 000 000 years to fully exchange with the atmosphere. (66,000,000 GT/0.2 GT/y = 330,000,000 y)
Are large carbon fluxes balanced?
Yes they are somewhat balanced year to year so the rate of release and aquisition of carbon in a resevoir is equal.
Are large carbon fluxes balanced?
Yes they are somewhat balanced year to year so the rate of release and aquisition of carbon in a resevoir is equal.
What processes lead to an increase in carbon in that atmosphere? what is leading to a reduction
Fossil fuel burning, deforestation and volcanoes
photosynthesis, carbonate rock formation, weathering
How can you calculate how long it takes a resevoir to exchnage all it’s carbon
To figure out how quickly a reservoir will exchange all of its carbon with another, take the size of the reservoir and divide it by the rate of exchange.
Name three reasons why models are good
Helpful in building intutition, making connections, and looking further to make predictions
Define residence time
The length of time carbon stays in any given resevoir
define carbon sinks
Carbon sinks are reservoirs that remove more carbon from the atmosphere than they release, and store it for a long period of time.
Are carbonate rocks good carbon sinks?
No, they are large reservoirs and have a long residence time but they are bad at removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it.
Are oceans good carbon sinks?
Yes, they have a high flux, remove more carbon from the atmosphere then they put back out, have a long residence time and are a large reservoir.
Are forests good carbon sinks?
Yes, however there is a finite amount of space for trees on earth- so deforestation stops them from being good sinks.
Explain how the nitrogen cycle works
N2 fixing bacteria fixes nitrogen to convert it into ammonia, this ammonia is then uptaken by plants, from here complex organisms can eat it to create biomolecules such as ATP which help biological mechanisms function. These complex organisms can then die, and nitrogen can be converted into nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, or N2 which get released back to the atmosphere.
Describe the sulfur cycle
Volcanoes erupt sulfur which then enters atmosphere as (so2) this sulfur can then precipitate onto land where it may runoff or decompose back into the atmosphere. If it runsoff it will enter water bodies and form marine sulfate, then bacteria can create pyrite out of it which enter the geosphere once more and decomposes again to enter the atmosphere.
Describe the rock cycle
magma crystallizes, turns into ingenious rock, weathers, erodes, and turns into sediment, gets compacted into sedimentary rocks, then gets heat and pressurized into a metamorphic rock, then melts and turns back into magma.
What does volcanism releases from the geosphere into the atmosphere?
Allows water, CO2, SO2, and other minor gasses to enter atmosphere.
What is weathering?
Weathering can be physical or chemical and breaks down rocks into smaller pieces
What is erosion?
Erosion transports broken up rock, it can do this through wind, running water, waves, glaciers, and gravity
What is physical weathering?
is the mechanical breakdown of rocks into smaller pieces
Describe what frost wedging is
Is when water enters cracks in a rock, freezes, expands and then breaks rock apart.
Describe what root wedging is
Root wedging is when roots push rock and grain fragments apart- is physical weathering
Describe what ventifaction is?
Is erosion- is when wind sand blasts rocks
Describe what thermal expansion is?
is when changes in temperature cause rocks to expand and contract- this can happen due to fires and the daily heating and cooling of earth. This leads to exfoliation as it weakens structure of rock and causes it to lift and crack at weak points. Is physical weathering
Describe what salt crystal growth is?
Is when crystals grow in cracks of rock and expand and contract due to heat and water which pushes grains and rock fragments apart. Is an example of physical weathering
Describe what bioturbation is?
Is when burrowing animals loosen and aerate sediments, this includes root wedging- is physicla weathering
What controls the rate of physical weathering?
Environmental condtions- like fires, temp chnages, aridity (salt growth), (strong wind) and water
Rock type, structure, determiens how formidable a rock is against weathering
Biological activity- if a lot of plants for ex this is an increase in root wedging.
Time- the longer a rock is exposed, the more it will be weathered.
What is chemical weathering?
This alters rocks and minerals at earths surface as they react with water, oxygen, and co2 to produce new minerals and dissolved elements and compounds
Name the 4 main chemical processes that lead to chemical weathering
Dissolution/Solution
Oxidation
Hydration
Hydrolysis
What is dissolution/solution?
When acid rain/surface water is produced from co2 and nitrogen oxides/so2 combining with water. The acid then dissolves rocks which makes rocks turn into solution, this results in chemical weathering at the surface which then seeps through bed rock causing underground cave systems called karsts.
What are speleothems?
are geological formations formed by minerals deposits over time
What is travertine- name two geological formations it makes
Is when solution of acids produced through chemical weathering have calcium carbonate rock ppt out of it can form stalicites (from the ceiling down) or stalagmites (from the ground up)
What is oxidation?
Oxidation occurs when minerals react with oxygen- leads to rusting and producing iron-oxide minerals like hematite.
What rocks are most at risk of oxidizing?
Rocks high in iron, such as pyroxene, amphibole, magnetite, pyrite, and olivine.
WHat is hydration
When minerals combine with water, changint ehir structure as it causes the them to expand and have a greater volume.
What is hydrolysis?
is the main chemical reaction that removes carbon from the atmosphere, water loosens bonds in mineral and this creates minerals AND ions. For example- potassium feldspar reacts with H and OH ion to make clay minerals, potassium ions, and silica in sltn.
What are the things that affect the rate of chemical weathering?
chemical weathering controlled by:
Surface environment (rocks under water or not?)
Exposed surface area (more surface area results in more chemical weathering)
Grain size (related to surface area)
Climate (more weathering in warm, humid climates)
Nature of rocks and minerals (Some rocks and minerals more susceptible to weathering than others-granite vs. limestone; quartz vs. feldspar)
