Earth Science GCHS
Terms
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- Respiration
- process when oxygen is mixed with food molecules to produce energy, water, and carbon dioxide
- Photosynthesis
- Process when plants use light to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen
- renewable resource
- one that can be replaced in nature close to the rate of its use
- nonrenewable resource
- exists in a fixed amount and is used up faster than it can be replaced
- soil fertility
- ability of soil to grow plants
- soil depletion
- nutrients are taken from the soil
- salinization
- water evaporates because of heat and leaves minerals such as salt behind
- eutrophication
- oxygen in lakes is used up faster than it can be replaced
- ore mineral
- rocks from which elements can be removed
- mineral reserves
- amount of known deposits of minerals in ore worth mining
- fossil fuels
- natural fuels made from the remains of plant and animals that lived long ago
- acid rain
- polluted rain caused by nitrogen and sulfur oxides released into the air by burning of coal and car exhausts
- toxic wastes
- poisonous byproducts of some industrial processes
- environment
- all of the resources, influences and conditions of the Earth's surface
- gangue
- nonvaluable rock where valuable minerals or metals are
- pollution
- when part of the environment is changed in a way that makes it unfit for human, plant and animal use.