Introduction to Natural Disasters

Question 1

Name 2 disasters that happen in the lithosphere

Answer 1

Earthquakes and volcanoes

Question 2

Name 2 disasters that happen in the hydrosphere

Answer 2

Tsunamis, whirl pools, floods (contamination)

Question 3

Name 2 disasters that happen in the atmosphere

Answer 3

Tornadoes, hurricanes, storm systems

Question 4

Name 2 disasters that happen in the biosphere

Answer 4

Forest fires, mass extinctions

Question 5

What are the 5 mass extinctions (when, what died off and why)

Answer 5

Ordovician-Siurian: Most was sea life so water dried out and killed all the sea life

Late Devonian: 3/4 of all species died out and life in shallow seas were worst affected

Permian (The Great Dying): 96% of species died out

Triassic-Jurassic: Climate change, flood, basalt eruptions and an asteroid impact have been blamed

Creataceous- Teritary: Death of the dinosaurs, ammonites, flowering plants and pterosaurs

Question 6

What is the 6th extinction are we living in (KT boundary)

Answer 6

Human destruction such as pollution, climate change, deforestation etc. is causing the 6th mass extinction

The KT boundary is a geological signature that is a layer in the geological strata, it happened between 2 time periods.

Question 7

Birth of the earth

Answer 7

The big bang is the most popular theory of how the earth formed. (universe starts as a particle and has been expanding for the past 13 billion years)

Question 8

What is the Goldilocks Principle (7 ingredients to sustain life)

Answer 8

“Just right”. The 7 ingredients that sustain life are:

• The right ingredients (water, energy source gases etc)
• The right crust (hot metallic core and rocky mantle)
• The right temperature (melted liquid water)
• The right moon (minimizes changes in our tilt)
• The right star (right temps)
• The right core (protects life from solar radiation)
• The right neighbors (Jupiter sucks up all the asteroids)

Question 9

How did the lithosphere form

Answer 9

The cold temperature of space cooled the hot ball of molten rock surrounding the earth. Which then caused the rock to solidify into an outer crust .

Question 10

How did the hydrosphere form

Answer 10

Dirty snowball theory. They said perhaps comets with water droplets crashed into the earth for millions of years causing water to accumulate and form pools of water and later on oceans.

Question 11

How did the atmosphere form

Answer 11

Atmosphere emerged from the vapor and gases that were expelled during the degassing of the planets interior.

Question 12

How did the biosphere form

Answer 12

Came from comets and asteroids (amino acids are found in comets. Also volcanic and deep sea vents caused water to boil and bacteria to grow.

Question 13

Where, other than earth do they say humans have the highest chance of living on

Answer 13

Europa