Earth Science: Processes, Layers, and Environmental Impact
Filtration
Filtration is used to separate solid and liquid components in heterogeneous mixtures, such as in sewage treatment.
Settling
Settling separates heterogeneous mixtures of liquids with different densities, such as water and oil.
Evaporation and Crystallization
Evaporation and crystallization are used to separate solutions of solid and liquid components, for example, in a saline solution.
Distillation
Distillation separates solutions of liquid components, such as in perfumes and alcoholic beverages.
One year is equivalent to one rotation and translation, and one day is equivalent to one rotation.
Dynamic Model Layers
- Lithosphere
- Asthenosphere
- Mesosphere
- Outer core
- Inner core
Tectonic Plates
The relationship between different phenomena is that the lithosphere is not a continuous layer but is fragmented into plates called lithospheric plates. When these plates move away, they become oceanic. When the lithospheric plates move and collide, the edges are called destructive, or the plates are convergent. When they slide laterally, they originate transform faults.
Volcanoes
- Focus: The deep zone.
- Chimney: Where the magma emerges externally.
- Crater: The mouth where the chimney ends.
- Volcanic cone: The mountain surrounding the crater.
Earthquakes
Earthquakes are vibratory movements of short duration due to fractures of the crust.
- P-waves: These are transmitted through the interior of the Earth and are the first to appear on a seismogram.
- S-waves: These are transmitted through the interior of the Earth at a lower speed than P-waves.
- Surface waves: These waves are slower and cause the most destructive effects.
Modeling of the Relief
- Internal geological agents: These are responsible for forming new structures in the relief, such as rocks and mountains.
- External geological agents: These modify the relief created internally by the development agents.
- Orogenesis: Shapes the relief.
- Gliptogenesis: Generates relief through external geological agents.
- Lithogenesis: Creates different types of rocks.
- Physical weathering: Includes gelifraction, thermal fracturing, and haloclasty.
- Chemical weathering: Includes oxidation, dissolution, hydration, and carbonation.
External Geological Agents
- Weathering: Can be physical, due to temperature action, or chemical, due to chemical changes in the rocks.
- Erosion: The mobilization and removal of materials resulting from the weathering of rocks.
- Transport: Torn materials in the erosive processes are transported to other locations.
- Sedimentation: The strength of the agents that transport the materials ceases, and these materials are deposited on the ground.
Runoff
If the water saturates the pores of the ground, groundwater will form trails at high speed, such as in fairy chimneys.
Streams
Streams are seasonal surface water flows that appear when rains are very intense, such as wadis.
Rivers
Rivers are continuous streams.
- Headwaters: Located in mountain areas, forming canyons, gorges, and waterfalls.
- Middle course: The current speed decreases, and the amount of water increases, forming troughs, floodplains, and meanders.
- Lower course: Corresponds to the mouth of the rivers in the oceans, forming deltas and estuaries.
Karstic Modeling
Fields with water-soluble rocks undergo intense chemical weathering when water reaches them.
- Chasms: Vertical ducts.
- Galleries: Ducts.
- Caves: Galleries that communicate with the outside.
Geological Action of Ice
Glaciers are moving ice masses that cover 10% of the Earth’s surface, including ice caps and alpine glaciers.
Geological Action of the Wind
Wind action occurs over the entire surface.
- Deflation: The wind drags particles.
- Aeolian abrasion: Occurs in particular due to the particles that the wind carries in suspension.
Sedimentary Rocks
These include compaction, cementation, detrital, chemical, and organic types.
Ecology
Ecology has a range of properties that allow and condition terrestrial life, including abiotic and biotic factors.
Energy Flow
Living things need an input of energy and matter.
Contamination
Contamination is the presence in the environment of any agent that produces negative consequences.
Hydrosphere
Naturally, if humans did not intervene, contamination would occur through human action and urban wastewater.
Terrain
The terrain has always been the site for organic waste disposal, leading to issues like desertification and forest fires.