Download The Geosphere The Hydrosphere

The Geosphere
The earth itself—the rocks, the mountains, the beaches, and all the other
physical features of the planet except water—makes up the geosphere.
The geosphere includes the ocean basins and the rock layers beneath your
feet, including those that you cannot see. These layers include the mantle,
a thick zone of hot rock below Earth’s crust, and the core that forms the
planet’s center and generates Earth’s magnetic field.
Mineral resources, such as iron and copper, are mined from the
geosphere. The stone and concrete used in building materials come from
the geosphere. Cities and homes are perched on the geosphere—in some
places, more precariously than in others.
Although it happens slowly, the geosphere is ever changing. Volcanic
eruptions form new land. Mountains are uplifted and eroded. And Earth’s
continents are in slow but constant motion.
The names of the four spheres
include prefixes with Greek roots.
Atmo- means vapor; geo-, earth;
hydro-, water; and bio-, life.
By analyzing prefixes, you can
often figure out the meaning of
unfamiliar terms.
THE GEOSPHERE includes rocks, such as these in Utah, and
other physical features of the planet, except water.
The Hydrosphere
The hydrosphere contains all the water at or near Earth’s surface. It includes
the water in oceans, lakes, and rivers, and groundwater. The hydrosphere
also includes the water locked up in ice and snow at the poles and in high
mountains.
Most of Earth’s water is salty. Only about 3 percent of the
hydrosphere consists of fresh water, and most of that water
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(70 percent) is frozen, in the form of glacial ice. The remaining fresh
Please refer to the
water is found in groundwater, in lakes, as soil moisture, as water
image in the textbook
vapor, and as river water. Of all the water in the hydrosphere, only
or in the eEdition CD.
about one half of 1 percent is usable fresh water.
All the water on Earth is continually recycled. The water you
drank this morning may have irrigated a field last year, flowed
through aqueducts during the time of the Roman Empire, or
washed around the feet of a dinosaur standing at a river’s edge
THE HYDROSPHERE includes water at or near
millions of years ago.
Earth’s surface.
Chapter 1 Earth as a System
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