1 / 17

What is Environmental Science?

What is Environmental Science?. The study of how humans interact with the environment . Goals of Environmental Science. Understand and solve environmental problems Accomplished by studying interactions between humans and the environment How we use natural resources

holly
Download Presentation

What is Environmental Science?

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. What is Environmental Science? The study of how humans interact with the environment

  2. Goals of Environmental Science Understand and solve environmental problems Accomplished by studying interactions between humans and the environment • How we use natural resources • How our actions alter the environment

  3. What are Earth’s Systems? • Geosphere • Atmosphere • Hydrosphere • Biosphere

  4. Geosphere Everything from the crust to the center of the earth.

  5. Geosphere The Forces Within the Earth Plate Tectonics Earthquakes Mountain Building Volcanism

  6. Observe World Map • Observe the continents • Does the shapes & position of the continents suggest they were once joined? Which Ones??

  7. Early Observations • 1500’s a Abraham OrteliusDutch cartographer noticed the apparent fit of continents on either side of the Atlantic Ocean • He proposed that N & S American was separated from Europe and Africa by earthquakes and floods… • Referenced as creator of the modern atlas

  8. 20th Century • 1912 Alfred Wagner presented his hypothesis that continents were slowly drifting around the Earth • Developed the continental drift theory

  9. Continental Drift Theory • Earth’s continents had been joined as a single landmass that broke apart and sent the continents adrift • Single Landmass supercontinent named Pangaea • Pangaea Greek word means all the Earth

  10. Pangaea • Break up about 200 million years ago. • Observed: puzzle like fit. • Evidence: rock, fossil and climate

  11. Rock Evidence Predicted: When Pangaea broke apart large geologic structures such as mountain ranges fractured during separation Investigated: Areas of similar rock types on opposite sides of the oceans Rock Layers in the Appalachian Mountains are identical to mountains in Greenland & Europe

  12. Fossil Evidence • Predicted: Land animals such as Lystrasaurus or Cynognathus could not have swum the great distances • Investigated: Similar fossils from several different plants & animals found on widely separated continents • Carbon dating of the fossils support the time frame of Pangaea breakup

  13. Climatic Evidence • Predicted: Fossils of plants like Glossopteris grew in temperate climates and found all over the world • Investigated: The area that separated these fossils is too large to have a single climate • For example fossil record of the plant in Antarctica & South Africa and S American

  14. Climatic Evidence • Coal Deposits : Existence of beds in Antarctica Frozen climate once had tropical climate • Glacial Deposits : Found in parts of Africa, India South America Locations of these continents too warm for ice formation

  15. Continental Drift Theory Flaws • 1st What force could push large mass over great distances • 2nd How the continents could move were through something solid like earth’s crust • They questions were the reasons why Wegener’s theory was rejected until the 1950s

  16. ANY QUESTIONS?

More Related