Yes. Septic tanks in shallow soil, uncontrolled farmyard runoff, unlined silage camps, dumping pollutants in closed depressions, and landspreading slurry on shallow soil are all things that can provide the wastes that pollute our groundwater.
What can cause algae to overpopulate a body of water?
When water leaches nutrients from the soil and runs off into large bodies of water.
As water flows through soil, What happens?
As it flows through, it leaches or absorbs organic materials and nutrients from the soil.
What is percolation?
Percolation is the name of the process that pulls water downward through the soil particles.
Why is water a polar molecule?
water is a polar molecule because of the slight bent shape of water molecules (both the positively charged hydrogen atoms are on one side of the water molecule and the negatively charged oxygen molecule is on the opposite side of the atom giving it those slight positive and negative sides)
Where is most of our water found?
Most of our water is found as groundwater.
What is bedrock?
Bedrock is the barrier that prevents water from percolating to the earth's core.
What happens if you cut down the trees in a rain forest?
It will become a desert due to the lack of moisture because of the lack of transpiration occurring.
How does transpiration add to the water cycle?
because when water is lost through the tiny pores in the leaves, the water can go through the hydrologic cycle and fall back onto the earth as rain. Transpiration is also a route through which ground water can be recycled into the system as plants are always absorbing water from underground.
What mostly affects percolation? Explain. How does this affect leeching as well?
Percolation is mostly affected by soil size. For example, if there was big chunky pieces of soil, then there would be big gaps between the soil through which water could easily and hastily travel through. Increasing percolation. However, due to this speed of travel, leeching decreases as the water now has less time to take things like phosphates and nitrates from the soil due to how fast it is going. On the other hand, if the soil was really fine and not chunky whatsoever, then the water will have a really hard time going through this soil due to there barely being any space through which the water can travel. This decreases percolation (because the water is moving really slowly) but increases leeching as the longer the water stays near the soil, the more nutrients it will pick up, which is what is happening in this scenario due to the water moving so slowly.
What is percolation?
Percolation is how fast/ the rate at which water seeps into the water table
What is infiltration?
infiltration is when gravity pulls on water and takes it through earth, underground, to form ground water reservoirs (aka the water table)
Every year the hydrologic cycle gets a little bit harder. Why?
Because of climate change. This is because it gets so hot, water cannot even condensate to turn it back into liquid anymore.
Describe the hydrological cycle.
Water gets evaporated because of the sunlight and becomes a part of the atmosphere (some of this water is provided because of transpiration too), forming a cloud during condensation due to water droplets reforming in the air where it is cooler. After, precipitation takes place and water leaves the cloud as rain and falls back onto earths surface where it either runs off into lakes, oceans, streams, etc. Or where it seeps into ground water.
List the different reasons why water is important to organisms.
1. Water absorbs and releases thermal energy and moderates temperature fluctuations
2.is the medium in which metabolic reactions take place
3. it is an excellent solvent (the water in blood dissolves gases, amino acids, carbs etc....)
4. Makes up 60% of a cells mass
5. Supplies hydrogen atoms to producers during the metabolism of key organic molecules during photosynthesis and oxygen atoms to all organisms during cell resp.
6. Is a reactant in some metabolic activities and a product in others.
When are cohesion and adhesion used in plants?
Cohesion: Cohesion is used in transpiration (each water molecule drags another water molecule behind it due to their attractions to each other.)
Adhesion: Adhesion prevents xylem sap from falling back to the roots.
Water molecules have the tendency to stick to other surfaces. What is this called?
This is called adhesion.
What is this drawing representing?
The attraction of water molecules to each other known as cohesion.
What causes water molecules to be attracted to each other? What is this magnetic-like force called?
The shape of water molecules and their polar properties causes them to be attracted to each other. This magnetic like force is called cohesion.
What contributes to water's unique properties?
the shape and charge of the water molecule.
What does it mean to be a polar molecule?
One side of the molecule has a slight positive charge and the other has a slight negative charge.
True or false: water is a non-polar molecule.
False: water is a polar molecule
Why is the fact that frozen water floats good for the environment?
Because this makes it so that lakes do not freeze solid during the winter allowing life to still exist in lakes during the winter.
describe the first four properties of water covered in this chapter.
1.Water is the only substance that exists as a solid, liquid, and gas at normal earth temperatures (-50 degrees Celsius and positive 50 degrees Celsius)
2. Frozen water floats on liquid water. This is very unique because in almost every other substance, the solid form is denser than the liquid form. The reason why the solid form of water is less dense than the liquid form of water is because when you freeze water, the amount hydrogen bonds increases in the substance and hydrogen bonds spread water molecules farther apart from each other so the frozen water becomes less dense than liquid water due to that increase in hydrogen bonds.
3.Water has high melting and boiling points. This is because it takes a lot of energy to break water's hydrogen bonds.
4. Water has a high surface tension due to it's hydrogen bonds. This is what allows some insects to walk on water and what allows many droplets of water to be collected on a penny.
True or false: Any atoms in a substance will eventually make their way into another substance.
True
Why is cycling of matter important?
because there is a set limit of matter on the earth and we don't want to run out.
What is bedrock?
a layer of earth that prevents water from going any lower.
Where do we get most of our wateR?
underground.
What is leaching?
Water traveling through soil and grabbing nutrients from the soil into the groundwater resevoirs.
What chemicals are in charge of acid rain?
SO2 and NOx
What is a Carbon sink?
a place large amounts of carbon are gathered and are isolated from the carbon cycle.
Where is in - organic carbon stored?
the atmosphere. the ocean, and the soil.
what type of carbon is in living things?
Organic.
Whats an example of a carbon sink?
Bogs
What are bogs?
massive carbon sink. stores carbon in its organic form.the bog creates peat which is good soil. if peat is covered in sediment it can become a fossil fuel
What are some qualities of bogs?
they water under them are very anaerobic. and its low PH
What is a carbon source?
a place or activity which results in carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.
describe the carbon cycle process.
Carbon dioxide gets into the atmosphere by animals conducting cellular resp and factories burning stuff. plants take carbon out of the atmosphere through photosnthesis making the carbon organic. when the plant is eaten by an animal they conduct cellular resp and breath carbon back into the atmosphere or the plant dies and is eaten by detrivores and the carbon in the soil helps make new plants which do cellular respiration and release CO2 back into the atmosphere.
What is the human impact on the carbon cycle?
we are mining up fossil fuels which are carbon sinks and releasing all of that carbon into the atmosphere faster than it is being stored. carbon build up plays a role in climate change and global warming.
explain how the carbon cycle changed from the past to the present.
3.5 billion years ago bacteria started consuming CO2 and releasing methane. the fossils of the bacteria are found in rocks called stromatolites. methane made the world hotter and eventually the greenhouse gases began to block light. this caused the evolution of photosynthesizing bacteria.
What is nitrogen fixing?
turning useless N2 in the atmosphere into a useful form of nitrogen.
What are the three was to fix nitrogen?
1. lightning.
2. nitrogen fixing bacteria in the soil that convert N2 into ammonium Which is then used by plants through a process called assimilation.
3. nitrogen fixing bacteria in small lumps in legume plants which are called nodules. these bacteria take N2 and make it into NO3 that the plant can use. The excess NO3 seeps into the soil for other plants.