Earth Systems Flashcards
Abiotic
Non-living things in the environment
Atmosphere
Envelope of gases that surrounds earth
Bio
Life
Biosphere
Sum of all ecosystems on earth
Biotic
Anything living
Crust
is 20 to 80km thick.
Made up of valleys, trenches, mountains, and volcanos.
Composed of tectonic plates.
Cryosphere
Solid form of water
Greenhouse gas
Gases on earth
Groundwater
Water found underground
Lithosphere
- The lithosphere is the solid, outer part of the earth, including the crust and upper mantle.
Mesosphere
Where meteors are found
Salinity
Amount of salt in water
Stratosphere
Composed of ozone
Tectonic plate
Large sections of the Earth’s crust that shifts over time.
Molten rock in the upper mantle flows, moving plates slowly.
This has changed land masses over millions of years.
Turbidity
the quality of being cloudy, opaque, or thick with suspended matter:
Thermosphere
Where satellites and space shuttles are found.
Tropossphere
composed of nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide
Upper mantle
Extends from below the crust to 410km towards the earth’s core.
Composed of mostly silicon, oxygen, magnesium, and iron.
Mostly molten and flowing
Water vapour
Gas form of water
Food chain
Shows the movement of energy from one trophic level to another.
Food web
Show the movement of energy and many interactions within an ecosystem.
Herbivore
Only eats plants.
Carnivore
Only eats meat.
Omnivore
Eats plants and meat.
Producer
Creates its own energy.
Consumer
Needs to consume/eat other consumers and producers to create energy.
Trophic level
The level an organism is found on a food web/chain.
Decomposer
Responsible for breaking down dead/decaying organisms and returning nutrients to eco-system.
Primary Consumer
Eats producer
Secondary Consumer
Eats primary consumer
Tertiary Consumer
Eats secondary consumer
Quanternary Consumer
Eats teritary consumer
Ecological pyramid
Pyramids that measure things in an ecosystem.
Energy pyramid
A pyramid from smallest to largest amount of energy.
Pyramid of numbers
A pyramid from smallest to largest with the number of numbers in the ecosystem.
Biomass
The amount of mass something has.
Biomass pyramid
The amount of biomass in an ecosystem from smallest to largest.
10% rule
10 percent of energy is transferred between trophic levels.
Germination
The process of a seed becoming a plant.
