General Science Flash Card Set 602953

Cards 10
Topics Acidity, Domain, Infiltration, Liver, Meteoroids, Minerals, Plate Tectonics, Types of Rock, Water Cycle

Study Guide

Acidity

An acid is a substance that gives up positively charged hydrogen ions (H+) when dissolved in water. A base (alkaline) gives up negatively charged hydroxide ions (OH-) when dissolved in water. pH is a scale that measures of how basic or acidic a solution is. Numbered from 0 to 14, solutions with a pH of 7 are neutral, less than 7 are acidic, more than 7 are alkaline.

Domain

The broadest classification of life splits all organisms into three groups called domains. The three domains of life are bacteria, archaea and eukaryota.

Infiltration

The water then accumulates as runoff and eventually returns to bodies of water or is absorbed into the Earth (infiltration) and becomes part of the water table, an underground resevoir of fresh water.

Liver

The liver produces bile which emulsifies (separates) fat.

Meteoroids

Smaller rocks shed by asteroids and comets are called meteoroids. When these rocks reach Earth's atmosphere, they burn up in the mesosphere and become meteors. If a meteor manages to reach the Earth, it is called a meteorite.

Minerals

Small quantities of certain minerals like iron, calcium, magnesium, and salt are important for nutrition and health.

Plate Tectonics

The crust and the rigid lithosphere (upper mantle) is made up of approximately thirty separate plates. These plates more very slowly on the slightly more liquid mantle (asthenosphere) beneath them. This movement has resulted in continental drift which is the gradual movement of land masses across Earth's surface. Continental drift is a very slow process, occurring over hundreds of millions of years.

Types of Rock

The Earth's rocks fall into three categories based on how they're formed. Igneous rock (granite, basalt, obsidian) is formed from the hardening of molten rock (lava), sedimentary rock (shale, sandstone, coal) is formed by the gradual despositing and cementing of rock and other debris, and metamorphic rock (marble, slate, quartzite) which is formed when existing rock is altered though pressure, temperature, or chemical processes.

Water Cycle

The water (hydrologic) cycle describes the movement of water from Earth through the atmosphere and back to Earth. The cycle starts when water evaporates into a gas from bodies of water like rivers, lakes and oceans or transpirates from the leaves of plants.