Earth Science Final Exam Vocabulary
Terms
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- abraison
- wearing away of rock by a grinding action
- aquifer
- the permeable layer, usually sandstone or gravel
- base level
- the level of the body of water into which a stream flows
- bed load
- sand, pebbles, and boulders that are moved along the bed of a stream and are too heavy to be carried in suspension
- calving
- glaciers as they extend into the sea, great blocks of ice break off to become icebergs
- carrying power
- the total amount of sediment in a stream together with the size of the particles being moved by the stream
- continental glacier
- the large ice sheets of Greenland and Antartica
- deficit
- a condition in which soil water storage is gone and there is a need for moisture from rainfall
- evaoptranspiratoin
- the loss of moisture as water vapor from the ground and from plants leaves
- firn
- in the hugh snowfields freshly fall snow becomes compressed and recrystalizes into a granular ice mat
- porosity
- percentage of material that is pore (open) space
- recharge
- the filling of soil water supply at times when plants need little moisture so there is some to fill underground water supply
- hydrosphere
- all the water of the Earth including surface and water underground
- ice caps
- small ice sheets
- ice front
- the location where a glacier melts as fast as it moves forward
- ice sheet
- roughly circular or oval in shape
- impermeable
- describes a rock material through which water does not pass easily
- outwash
- a broad stratified gently sloping deposit formed beyond the terminal moraine by streams
- permeable
- the airspaces in rocks (pores) means that water can pass through it
- rock flour
- a mixture of fine sand and silt formed by the crushing of rock under a glacier
- snow line
- the lowest level that permanent snow reaches in summer
- straiations
- scratches on rocks and bedrock due to glacier movement
- surplus
- the condtion of having rainfall greater than the need for moisture when the soil is already saturated (holding all it can hold)
- till
- unsorted and unstratified rock materials carried inthe bottom of a glacier
- usage
- the condtion where plants draw water from the soila t times when the need for moisture is greater than the rainfall
- valley glacier
- a large slowmoving, wedge-shaped stream of ice
- water budget
- describes the income and outgo of water in a region
- water cycle
- the hydrologic cycle, a never-ending movement, of water from one part of the hydroshpere to another
- water table
- the surface below which the ground is saturated with water
- watershed
- the entire area drained by a stream and its tributaries