ENV-SCI 110R 1st EditionExam # 1 Study Guide1/21Uniformitarianism: the logical continuity, predictability of physical processes and mechanisms. We can logically figure how they work. Then we can assume that the explanation will work again. Ex: if scientists can figure out why it rains now anywhere on the Earth, then we also know that is what it causes it to rainin the future or why it rained in the past. There is nothing supernatural going on. The grand canyon was not made by a giant turtle of life that drugits tail. There are no ghosts, miracles or spirits in these natural processes. There is nothing in the natural world that cannot be understood by the human mind. THERE IS NO GOD. Around the 1900’s, there was a scientist in France. He knew that if he went to the Seine river in Paris, if you took a drink of water (which you didn’t want to do because sewage was in it) but if you went to a freshwater stream, the water is sweet. Then went to the sea and got salty water in his mouth (where is this story going……..) He thought to himself that the rain goes to streams into seine into the ocean. So it goes from really fresh to really salty. What is causing this transitions? Why are oceans salty and the riversfresh? As the rain falls, anything on the Earth (dirt, bird poop, grease) that is soluble (like salt) the water will dissolve it. The freshwater will have some minerals in it, but not enough to detect. The ocean is subject to evaporation so the water evaporates from the ocean and leaves the salt and other minerals behind in the ocean. Ocean water will get saltier and saltier over the years. Mediterranean sea is saltier than the Baltic because the Med is warmer. How many years would it take for the sea to become salt? He thinks it would take 90 million years. Bu the 1950’s, the estimated Earth age was 2 billion. Now it isbelieved that the Earth is around 5 billion years old. The universe is believed to come into existence about 18 billion years ago. Invertebrate: 500 million years old (first signs of life)Paleozoic: ancient life1/26Himalayas are the biggest mountain range. Grows 1/10 inch each year. 3,000,000ish years old. Apalachan mountains were the biggest but erosion has made them much smaller over many years.William Smith from 1750-1850ish everyone was building canals. Everything was imported/exported by boats. Smith discovered while digging canals through strati (layers of rock) that they would have to plan ahead. Canals went through mountains or over bridges to they are level. He noticed the different layers that the canals were dug through. They also would find bones of animals that were unfamiliar like 9ft long deer or cattle. The deeper they dug the more primitive the skeletons became. Superposition: the closer to the surface, the younger the rock is.The sun is 100x bigger than the Earth. 1.3 million Earths can fit in the sun. The sun is about 93 million miles from the Earth. Takes 8.5 minutes for light from the sun to reach the Earth.1/28/15The milky way is 100,000 light years across. The world is 24,000 miles in circumference (around). The world was formed by accretion: the coming together of small dust particles to make bigger ones. Everything has a gravitational pull. The bigger the thing, the bigger the pull. If the Earth did not rotateon its axis while rotating around the sun, the side facing the sun would be extremely too hot for life, and the side away would constantly be in shadow and be extremely too cold. Ex: a rotating rotisserie chicken.One side would be burnt and the other would be raw. Neither side is good to eat. The world rotates at about 1,000 miles per hour but moves slower the closer you get to the poles- they don’t have to travel asfar. Example: runners on a track. The outside people have to run faster around curves to keep up with the people on the inside because their distance is shorter. This means that in the tropics around the Equator, sunrise and sunset are much faster than the other places. The Earth rotates to the East (counter clockwise at the North Pole and clockwise at the South Pole). This explains why the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Heliocentric System (Copernican system): the center of gravity is the sun. Geocentric System: The earth is the center of the solar system. This was disproven. The earth moves 18 miles per second or 365 ¼ days to get all the way back around the sun. We have a leap year every 4 years to make up for the ¼ day missed every year. The equator is exactly half way between the two poles and is 0 degrees latitude. The north pole is 90 degrees north latitude and the south pole is 90 degrees south latitude. Lines of latitude are all parallel.They picked an arbitrary spot to start the0 degree meridian for longitudes discovered by Ptolemy. He lived in Alexandria in Egypt which was on the nile river which leads to the mediteranean sea. The meridians are not parallel because they converge at the poles like orange slices. International date line is the line that divides today from tomorrow. Directly on the other side of the world than the prime meridian. 1/30/15Graticule: network of latitude and longitudeLatitudes are 70 miles apart. So from 40N to 30n is 700 milesKansas city is at 40N and 95 WZenith: the highest point that the sun can reach. Typically noon but it depends on where you are in the time zone. So its when the sun is directly above you. Time zones are 15 degrees each. That is 360degrees divided by 24 hours a day. Each degree can be divided into minutes and seconds. 1 mile is 1 minute.There are four times zones in the United States not including Alaska and Hawaii. China was strictly enforcing centralized government. They decided that China is only one time zone. This didn’t work so they split it up into two time zones. The equator runs straight through the mouth of the amazon river in brazil. There is a huge notch in the north east corner that is easy to spot without the equator actually drawn. From new York to straight of Gibraltar is 3200 nautical miles.6,080 feet is a nautical mile. 20% farther than an American mile which is 5280 feet. 2/2/2015Kilometers to miles is multiply it by 6 then divide by 10. Example. 100 kilometers per mile x6 is 600. Divided by 10 is 60. So 100 kmph is the same as 60mph.Continental United States: about South America: 3,000 miles across at the widest placeFrom Recife (farthest East point of South America) to Monrovia, Liberia (the Eastern most part