Earth’s Processes and Energy Resources: An In-Depth Look
Environmental Geology
1. Definitions:
a) Resource Reservation: Not specifically defined in the provided text. It likely refers to the practice of setting aside resources for future use or preservation.
b) Mineral Deposit: A set of separate minerals and concentrates, which consists of *mena* (ore) and gangue.
c) Non-renewable Energy: This is energy with renewability that far exceeds the period of our species on the planet.
d) Mena (Ore): The part of the deposit which is considered exploitable.
e) Lithospheric Plate: Each of the fragments of the lithosphere, which move horizontally with respect to each other, driven by mantle convection currents caused by heat from the core.
f) Diapir or Salt Dome: Salt masses are found interspersed between layers and, because of their lower density, tend to rise, causing instability in the field. This carries some risks: damage to buildings and roads and sinking by dissolving salt.
g) Chemical Weathering: Water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other substances produce chemical reactions in the minerals of the rocks which contribute to their decomposition. This results, on the one hand, in soluble substances and fine materials that are transported in solution and suspension, respectively. On the other hand, the surface rocks are chemically altered to a greater or lesser degree.
h) Hot Spot: In Spain, there is some unnoticeable volcanism on the peninsula (areas of Gerona, Ciudad Real, AlmerÃa). However, in the Canary Islands, volcanic activity is more obvious and frequent, due to the existence of a hot spot.
i) P Waves: These are longitudinal or compressional waves, which means that the ground is alternately compressed and dilated in the direction of propagation.
j) Gelivation or Gelifraction: Frozen water introduced through the cracks forms ice. By experiencing an increase in volume, it takes a broad effect on a wedge that cracks up to split the rock. Detached materials accumulate in the form of deposits at the foot of the mountains, forming scree or quarries. Gelifraction processes take place in cold environments and contribute to the modeling called periglacial.
k) Thermoclast: Cracking in the rock produced as a result of sudden temperature changes.
2. Differences Between:
a) Internal and External Geological Processes:
- Internal: Internal processes are those arising from the internal energy of the Earth. They originate in the Earth’s interior and are often expressed about the crust.
- External: External processes take place through the combined action of two types of energy: solar heat and gravity. It is true that the internal processes make possible the formation of relief and, therefore, provide the potential energy that can act gravity.
b) Constructive and Destructive Margins:
- Constructive: These edges are divergent and are called ridges. Submarine ridges are limiting a crack (Rift), which comes out of the mantle material, forming oceanic lithosphere. That is, the gap filling rift will continuously by these new materials from the partial melting of upper mantle peridotites and to strengthen contact with seawater. Thus, expanding oceans and continents will go spreading.
- Destructive: The boundary that separates the continental crust from the oceanic crust is a zone whose characteristics favor the fracture itself, becoming an active margin. In it occurs the subduction of oceanic lithosphere, higher density than the mainland, under it. As subduction progresses, it forms a trench at the confluence of the two plates, where sediments will accumulate from the continent. Subduction is a cycle of formation and destruction of oceanic lithosphere. While the ridges new crust is generated in the subduction zones and abduction is destroyed.
c) Sliding and Crawling:
- Landslide: In rainy seasons, the infiltrated water increases the weight of some layers of rock, reducing the internal friction coefficient, thereby sliding the upper to the lower. Landslides can be slow or fast and need a take-off surface, for example, the interface between two layers.
- Crawling: A slow gravity decrease is the result of the lifting effect of the expansion (heat), the retraction (cold), and gravity. It affects the most superficial layer.
3. Fossil Fuels: Origin, Types, and Applications
– Coal: Coal deposits were formed by the deposition and burial of plant remains in swamps and bogs in the Carboniferous, Triassic, and Jurassic periods. Subsequent anaerobic fermentation occurred in an environment saturated with water. Moreover, this change also affected the temperature compaction and suffered because of the burial. As a result of these changes, cellulose and lignin are converted into carbon and slowly emit gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, which can accumulate in the fissures of rocks, causing the mine gas, responsible for the explosions which occur in the galleries of the coal mines. The use to which it gives the energy is mainly coal to generate electricity in power plants or for heating, for melting the steel industry for the distillation and production of town gas, to obtain raw materials such as plastics, synthetic fibers, etc.
– Oil: It is the main energy resource today. Oil is formed by an accumulation of organic matter from phytoplankton and zooplankton in marine sedimentary basins with anaerobic conditions. These conditions occur in some relatively closed sea basins, like the Red Sea. There, the burial processes leading to the formation of sapropel, a sort of mud rich in organic matter, and then after anaerobic fermentation processes and increasing pressure and temperature as burial continued oil forms an oily liquid rich in hydrocarbons.
– Natural Gas: Oil is formed next to and in the fields provided above it, as has much less density. Therefore, it is also extracted through wells or platforms, although their removal is easier than oil. It is a mixture of gases (methane, hydrogen, ethane, propane, butane) and transported primarily by pipeline. It is used either for the production of power generation and heating.
4. Plate Tectonics and the Dynamics of the Lithosphere
External geological processes operate by solar energy and gravitational attraction. These processes are related to the dynamics of the outer layers of the world, manifested through the external geological agents (glaciers, rivers, wind, etc.). Internal geological processes operate at the expense of the internal energy of the earth and are intimately linked to the dynamics of the lithosphere.
5. Environmental Problems: Nuclear vs. Thermal Power Plants
Regarding nuclear waste, it is noteworthy that some of them, such as plutonium, remain radioactive for thousands of years (up to 10,000), which constitutes a risk to human settlements. Temporary containers are stored in pools at nuclear plants. For final disposal, stable areas are thought subsurface ocean and continents. Continental nuclear cemeteries are located at great depth (between 300-1000 meters) in a very stable structure so you do not need security surveillance in the future. There is currently no definitive solution for neutralization (even thought sending them out of the Earth by rockets) and the generation of nuclear waste is the main cause, along with the risk of accidents, critics argue that this type of energy. The use of fossil fuels inevitably involves the production of waste gases that are polluting the atmosphere and causing environmental problems already known. Here we will refer to the solid waste is dumped in various parts of the geosphere. Although these residues have different nature, they all lack the dispersed nature possessed by gaseous and liquid, so it can be concentrated with relative ease, even if it is a negligible energy cost. Consider the daily collection of millions of tons of garbage they generate today’s societies. Depending on its rate of degradation or weathering and its dangers may or may not apply the principle of sustainable emission.