Review for Exam 2

By spreading rapidly, creating a broader mid-ocean ridge that displaces seawater

How could the Mid-Ocean Ridge system have caused sea level to rise in the past?

stratosphere

In the ____, temperature increases with altitude, because ozone absorbs ultraviolet radiation.

Gaia

James Lovelock used the term ____ to refer to Earth, comparing it to a living creature due to the interconnectivity of all of its systems.

divergent

Mid-Ocean Ridges are examples of _______________ plate boundaries

the outer regions of the solar system

Most of the water that fills Earth's oceans came from ____.

temperature and salinity

Ocean water density depends on ____.

denser; sinks

Oceanic crust is ____ than continental crust and therefore ____ isostatically

basalt

Oceanic crust is mostly composed of

71

Oceans cover about ____ percent of Earth's surface

coring devices

Samples of sediment can be collected from the seafloor using ____.

sunlight

Smog is produced when automobile exhaust is exposed to ____________________.

ozone; CFCs

Solar energy breaks oxygen molecules apart in the stratosphere, releasing ____, that then combine with additional oxygen molecules to form ____.

false

T/F: Alpine glaciers are found on every continent on Earth.

true

T/F: Currently, Earth has only two ice sheets.

true

T/F: Donora-type incidents in the United States have not been repeated.

true

T/F: Glaciers form U-shaped valleys.

false

T/F: Granite is more dense than basalt

true

T/F: If Earth had no atmosphere, radiant heat loss would be so rapid that Earth's surface would cool drastically at night.

false

T/F: Incoming solar radiation is absorbed by Earth's surface as long-wave radiation and reemitted as short-wave radiation.

true

T/F: Ocean currents play a major role in determining average temperature of a given region on Earth.

false

T/F: Oceanic crust is thicker than continental crust.

true

T/F: Oceans are commonly warmer than adjacent land in the winter and cooler in the summer.

true

T/F: Ozone is both a pollutant and a beneficial component of the atmosphere, depending on elevation.

true

T/F: Pressure from the weight of overlying ice favors melting at the base.

true

T/F: Sea levels has risen and fallen repeatedly in the geologic past, and coastlines have emerged and submerged throughout Earth's history.

false

T/F: Snowfields and glaciers have relatively low albedo.

false

T/F: Temperature decreases continuously with altitude in all atmospheric layers.

false

T/F: The Clean Air Act and its amendments have done little to decrease total emissions of air pollutants.

true

T/F: The Mid-Oceanic Ridge system is Earth's largest mountain chain.

false

T/F: The emission of radiation requires a relatively high albedo.

true

T/F: The ozone in the upper atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing much of the high-energy ultraviolet light before it reaches Earth's surface.

remote sensing

Techniques that do not require direct physical contact with the ocean floor, such as ship-based echo sounders or satellite-based microwave radar, are called _______________ methods

hot; low

The Mid-Oceanic Ridge rises high above the surrounding sea floor because new lithosphere forming at the ridge axis is ____ and of relatively ____ density.

2 million

The Pleistocene Glaciation began about ____ years ago.

electromagnetic spectrum

The ____________________ is the entire range of electromagnetic radiation.

feedback

The cooling of Earth will cause more snow glaciers to grow, which will cause even more cooling. This is an example of a(n) ____ mechanism.

99

The ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica contain ____ percent of the world's ice.

transportation

The largest source of air pollutants in the United States come from ____.

troposphere

The layer of air closest to Earth, the layer we live in, is the ____________________.

Clean Air Act

The major legislation that dictates federal air pollution policy is the ____________________.

water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane

The most important greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are ____.

atmospheric pressure

The pressure exerted by air is the ____________________.

coal-fired electric generators

The primary source of sulfur dioxide pollution is ____.

receives direct sunlight

The region of the globe directly beneath the Sun is warmer because it ____.

scatters

The sky appears blue from Earth's surface because the blue component of the sunlight ____________________ more than the other frequencies.

upwelling

The upward flow of water that carries cold water from the ocean depths to the surface is called

temperature

The wavelength (color) of emitted electromagnetic radiation is determined by the ____ of the source.

military maps of the seafloor created during WWII

What led to the discovery of mid-ocean ridges?

fly ash

When coal burns, some minerals escape from the chimney as ____________________, which settles as gritty dust.

subduction

Where two plates converge and one dives beneath the other, a(n) _______________ zone is formed.

troposphere<stratosphere<mesosphere<thermosphere

Which of the following shows the correct order of the atmospheric layers, from the lowest layer to the highest layer?

Chlorophyll-bearing plants convert carbon dioxide and water to organic sugars and release oxygen.

Which statement describes the process of photosynthesis?

Specific heat of land causes faster heating and cooling compared to ocean water.

Why do continental interiors show greater seasonal extremes of temperature than coastal regions?

Rocks, soil, and water reemit most of the energy they absorb from the Sun.

Why doesn't Earth get hot enough to boil oceans and melt rocks from the radiant energy it absorbs from the Sun?

outgassing

____ is the release of volatiles from Earth's mantle in volcanic eruptions.

water

____ plays an important role in heat transfer and storage because it commonly occurs naturally on Earth in all three states: solid, liquid, and gas.

CFCs or halons

____________________ are compounds that rise into the stratosphere that react with, and destroy, the ozone layer.

photons

____________________ are particles of light or the smallest particle or packet of electromagnetic energy.

aerosols

____________________ are particles or particulates that are suspended in air.

ozone

____________________ in the stratosphere absorbs ultraviolet radiation.

latent heat

____________________ is the energy released or absorbed when a substance changes from one state to another.

albedo

____________________ is the reflectivity of a surface.

convection

____________________ is the upward and downward flow of fluid material in response to heating and cooling.

sulphur dioxide

____________________ reacts in moist air to produce sulfuric acid.

cyanobacteria

____________________ were the earliest photosynthetic life-forms on Earth.

alpine

A glacier that forms in mountainous terrain and covers an area of less than 50,000 square kilometers is a(n) ____ glacier.

ice shelf

A thick mass of ice that floats on the ocean surface but is connected to and fed from a glacier on land is called a(n) ____.

volatile

A toxic ____________________ is a byproduct of any process that releases harmful compounds into the air.

glacier

A(n) ____________________ is a massive, long-lasting accumulation of compacted snow and ice that forms on land and moves downslope or spreads outward under its own weight.

50

About ____ percent of the incoming solar radiation reaches Earth's surface.

sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides dissolving in moist air

Acidic precipitation is produced by ____.

greenhouse

Carbon dioxide and methane can trap heat in Earth's atmosphere known as ____________________ gases.

carbon dioxide and water

Completely burned hydrocarbons produce ____.

variations in Earth's orbit and spin axis

Cycles identified by Milutin Milankovic´ are caused by ____.

differences in water density

Deep-sea currents are driven by ____.

carbon dioxide; water

During photosynthesis, plants convert ____ and ____ to organic sugars and oxygen.

first great oxidation event

During the ____________________, about 2.4 billion years ago, oxygen concentration in the atmosphere increased to appreciable quantities.

banded iron

During the evolution of Earth's atmosphere, when enough oxygen had accumulated in seawater, iron-rich minerals precipitated on the sea floor and became the ____________________ formations that are mined for iron today

the atmosphere absorbs and retains much of the radiation emitted from the surface

Earth remains warm at night because ____.

infrared

Earth's surface emits ____________________ radiation, which has a relatively long wavelength and low frequency.

long-wave

Earth's surface reemits energy from the Sun mostly as ____________________ radiation.