Unit 4: The Geosphere

Did you notice the ring around the moon a few evenings ago? What caused it?

**So you're taking a Midterm Exam...maybe this will help you out**

What is the Geosphere?

The geosphere is the solid Earth that includes continental and oceanic crust as well as the various layers of the Earth's interior.
The geosphere includes the lithosphere, the mantle, and the dense metallic cores.
The surface of Earth has identifiable major features--land masses (continents), oceans, rivers, lakes, mountains, canyons, and glaciers.
The movement of Earth's lithospheric plates causes both slow changes in the earth's surface (e.g., formation of mountains and ocean basins) and rapid ones (e.g., volcanic eruptions and earthquakes).
Earth's surface is built up and worn down by natural processes, such as rock formation, erosion, and weathering.
Physical evidence, such as fossils and radiometric dating, provide evidence for the Earth system's evolution and development.

Enduring Understandings:

The present is the key to the past. Studying current Earth processes helps scientists piece together the planet's geologic history.
The Earth can be viewed as a set of dynamic systems—the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and geosphere—that interact with each other. The interactions of these systems through time have determined the character of the Earth.
Geologic time: The processes that have governed the evolution of the Earth operate over time scales so much longer than human experience that they are difficult to comprehend.
Nearly everything we know about the Earth—including the age of the planet and when life first appeared—has been learned from evidence contained in rocks.
The flow of solid rock in the Earth's mantle (convection) drives plate tectonics and has shaped the planet's surface over millions of years.