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One Strange Rock
LT 6 Carbon Cycle
Name: ___________________________________
Gasp
1. According to Will Smith, the strangest place in the universe might just be __________________.
2. The “thin blue line” refers to Earth’s __________________.
3. When he had to flush his spacesuit, all of astronaut Chris’ oxygen _______________________.
4. The only life that can grow in the acidic lake with no oxygen is a special kind of ____________________.
Without oxygen, life can’t grow any larger than a __________________________.
5. Astronauts watch dust storms blow from Africa to ___________________________. In the rainforest,
that dust is the perfect __________________________.
6. As they grow, plants and trees turn carbon dioxide (CO2) into ____________________________.
7. The life in the rainforest uses ___________% of that oxygen (O2).
8. From the space station, the _________________________ is a part of the world that is always cloudy.
9. In the Amazon, water travels up ________________________, through the _____________________,
and eventually the sun and wind turn that water into a mighty flying _________________________.
10. As the water flows, it erodes rock that becomes nutrients. Those nutrients end up in the____________,
where they are used by ____________________ (the tiny secret to Earth’s oxygen supply).
11. When diatoms __________________________________, they produce oxygen (O2). ____________ of
your breath is provided by diatom photosynthesis.
12. In Norway… some diatoms get their nutrients from rainforests, some get nutrients from ____________.
13. When nutrients run out, diatoms ________. Then they fall to _________________________________.
Eventually the sea beds are exposed and become a _____________________________.
14. And so the dust that blows from deserts of Africa to Amazon rainforests was once _______________.
15. To get to where the oxygen starts to run out, all you really need to do is _________________.
16. La Rinconada is a town at ______________________ feet elevation, the limit of human tolerance.
17. For the makeup of the atmosphere (& for life itself) ________________________ is crucial.
18. Oxygen makes up _________________% of our atmosphere.