Geologic Systems Flashcards
Closed system
Exchanges only heat, no matter
Open system
Exchanges both heat and matter with its surroundings
Equilibrium
A condition of lowest possible energy
Hydrologic system
The complex cycle through which water moves from the oceans to the atmosphere, over the land and back to the oceans again. Water moves as surface runoff, groundwater, glaciers, waves and currents and erodes, transports, and deposits surface rock material.
Climate system
Earths oceans and gases in atmosphere
River systems
Most water precipitated onto the land returned directly to the oceans through surface drainage systems
Glacier systems
Modify the normal hydrologic system bc the water that falls on land Doran not return immediately as surface runoff
Groundwater systems
The water that seeps into the ground and moves slowly through the pore spaces in soil and rocks
Shoreline systems
Waves, tides and currents that erode the coast and transport large quantities of sediment
Eolian systems
The circulation of the atmosphere
Plate tectonics
The study of the formation and deformation of Earths crust that results in large scale features
Plates
Segments of rigid lithosphere that are in constant motion relative to one another and carry lighter contents with them
Subduction
Plates of oceanic lithosphere form as hot mantle material rises along mid-oceanic ridges consumed at these zones; a converging plate plunges downward into the hotter mantle below
Convention
The basic source of energy for tectonic movement
Divergent plate boundaries
Plates moving apart; molten material from deeper mantle fills void
