What's the Earth System and How do we Study it? Flashcards
How does the Earth System function?
Through construction & destruction
What’s the construction process?
An internal heat engine filled with energy
What’s the destructive process?
An external heat engine filled with energy
What are terrestrial planets?
Planets that have surfaces, smaller than gas planets, don’t have many moons as gas planets, and have more thermal energy
What are gas planets?
Planets that are made out of gas, bigger than terrestrial planets, more moons, and stronger gravitational pull
What’s CHZ?
A continuously Habitable Zone.
1) Water can be fluid for 4.5 Ga
2. ) Planet just large enough with enough gravity to hold an atmosphere
Why is CHZ important?
Determines whether a planet is active or not.
Why is Earth an active planet?
Because it is a CHZ planet, its large enough to keep internal heat & keep its atmosphere, life can exist, and its far from the sun to have liquid water & climate stability over 4.5 Ga
What single event turned the entire Earth molten?
Outgassing
Why is the size of the Earth important?
Because it is big enough to hold it’s own atmosphere
How old is the solar system?
4.57 Ga
How long ago was the formation of the Earth-moon system?
4.45 Ga
How far is the Earth from the sun?
93 mill. miles
What’s outgassing?
It’s where chemicals from volcano eruptions create an atmosphere
What are the rocky/ terrestrial planets?
Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars
Why doesn’t mercury have water?
It dried up
Why doesn’t mars have water?
It froze
How did the Earth form?
Through a collision
How did the solar system form?
From the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud
What’s a primodrial/ pre-solar nebula
A giant nebula cloud
How big is comet-67 P?
Approx. 4 km long and approx. 3.5 km wide
When did the sun become the sun?
Nuclear fusion begins in the sun (proto-sun) and lights the sun, sent major shock waves throughout the protoplanetary disc to be concentrated in belts causing more collisions & accretions forming proplanets
What’s the formation of the moon?
- ) Collision with Thea
2. ) Collision helps accrete the moon with debris from the rings of Earth
How did the molten rock ancient Earth cool to its present form?
Through 3 functions of cooling
What are the three forms of cooling?
- ) Convection
- ) Radiation
- ) conduction
What happens during convection?
Hot material rises and cool material falls
What happens during conduction?
Energy emits heat from the core
What happens during radiation?
Energy is emitted to warm up material around it
What’s Earth’s energy input and output?
Input: Solar energy
Output: terrestrial energy
What’s a hypothesis?
A testable explanation of a situation that can be supported or disproved
Where does cool molted rock or lava form?
The lithosphere
How are protoplanets formed?
Through accretion of debris through gravitational attraction
What’s a protoplanetary disk?
a rotating circumstellar disk of dense gas and dust surrounding a young newly formed star
What must remain in equilibrium?
Constructive and destructive process
What’s an engine?
A device that runs on energy
What’s a heat engine?
A device that produces energy from heat
What’s a system?
Something that is separate from other systems
What’s the Earth system?
The interaction of 4 subsystems
What does a system include?
- ) Common characteristics
- ) Parts that are combinations of matter and energy that interact
- ) Interdependent parts
How do we study geology?
.Observation
.Understanding & use of uniformitarianism
.Understand & use catastrophism
.Combine uniformitarianism and catastrophism and view Earth’s history as slow, gradual story, punctuated by natural catastrophic events
What’s uniformitarianism?
Present is key to past & slow change over vast times. (“same”)
What’s catastrophism?
Presence of sudden, short-lived, violent events that aren’t uniformitarianism
What’s an example of catastrophism?
A meteor that caused mass extinction of dinosaurs
Why do we study the Earth?
. To make a living “learn to earn”
.Understand the Earth to sustain the cultural & ecologic unity of places we live: Earth
What does Gaia mean?
mother; the form of complex living beings
What are the types of systems?
Open, closed, isolated
What’s an open system?
Allows energy & mass across system boundary
What’s a closed system?
Allows energy only across system boundary
What’s isolated system?
Allows neither energy nor mass across the system boundary
How much meteorite mass falls to Earth each year?
37,000-78,000 tons
What’s structure?
How parts are arranged
What’s process?
Change(s) in a system
What are the major parts/ subsystems of the Earth system?
Atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere (geosphere), and biosphere
What are interface phenomena?
Interaction between various subsystems
What is an example of interface phenomena?
Wind erosion: atmosphere and lithosphere
What helped outgassing create the atmosphere?
Gravity & radioactivity
What type of rocks apply to the law of horizontality?
Sedimentary rocks
What type of rocks apply to the principle of inclusions?
Metamorphic rocks
What type of rock apply to the law of cross-cutting?
Igneous rocks
What’s a dike?
An igneous intrusion that cuts across overlying layers
What’s a fault?
A geological event that curves from the top to the bottom
What laws/ principles pertain to faults?
Original horizontality & cross-cutting relationship
Do stable or unstable isotopes decay?
unstable because they have too few neutrons
What’s a fold?
A deformation of rock layers that do not bend
Can a fault and fold occur at the same time?
yes
What’s the hydrosphere?
All the water on Earth and in the atmosphere
What % of Earth water is salt water and fresh water?
97% salt water, 3% fresh water
What’s the cyrosphere?
The region of permanently frozen water
What’s the atmosphere?
A blanket of gases that surrounds our planet
What’s the biosphere?
All organisms on Earth as well as environment in which they live
What’s the lithosphere (geosphere)?
The area from the surface of Earth down to its center
What’s the geosphere divided into?
Crust, mantle, & core
What’s the crust?
Rigid outer shell of Earth of two kinds
What are the two kinds of crust?
Continental and Oceanic
What’s the mantle?
Temperature: 100-40000 degrees celcius
What’s the core?
Temperature: as high as 7000 degrees celcius
What’s degassing?
Make or become free of unwanted or excess gas
What’s internal differentiation?
Analysis of the processes involved in the value chain in order to find out which of them make the product different
What’s radiometric dating?
Dating an object using radioactive isotopes
What’s gravity?
A force that attracts a body toward the center of the Earth or toward any other physical body having mass
