Category: Environmental Science

Around 190 million years ago, Pangaea began to break up. The breakup resulted in two landmasses: Laurasia, the northern group of continents, and Gondwanaland, the southern group of continents; Gondwanaland included South America, Antarctica, Australia, Africa, and India. Breakups! North America: 130 mya Australia: 50 mya India: 90 mya Europe: 30 mya Antarctica: 50 mya […]

Introduction Eratosthenes, a Greek geographer (about 276 to 194 B.C.), made a surprisingly accurate estimate of the Earth’s circumference. The legend follows that Eratosthenes used a deep vertical well near Syene, in southern Egypt which was entirely lit up by the sun at noon once a year as the basis of his calculations. He reasoned […]

1) There appears to be a negative correlation between the tree ring growth and the average temperature for each year. As the temperature declines the average tree ring growth becomes much more substantial and vice versa when the temperature increases. Examples of this correlation can be seen at several yearly intervals such as: High Tree […]

As the distance to the epicenter increase, the time delay between the P and S wave arrivals increases as well. The greater the distance from the epicenter the more progressively the S wave will lag behind the P wave. P waves (primary waves) are longitudinal waves that travel through the earth. When placed in solid/ […]

What is Weather? Weather describes atmospheric conditions in a given location over a short period of time, such as a day or a week. The atmospheric conditions include temperature, precipitation, wind, humidity, atmospheric pressure and the presence of fog, mist or cloud cover. What Causes Weather? The interactions of water air and the energy from […]

Volcanoes formed at certian locations because they were along plate boundaries, which provide the ideal circumstances for magma formation and its subsequent eruption. At subduction boundaries the lithopsheres collide and the denser plate is pulled down into the mantle. This introduces water into the asthenosphere which lowers melting temperature and allows the less dense magma […]

GALAXIES – A galaxy is an extremely large area of space that contains billions and billions of stars along with gases and dust. – Our solar system belongs to the “Milky Way Galaxy.” The Milky Way Galaxy is approximately 100 000 light years wide. This means if a light was turned on at one end […]

– Since the universe is so incredibly large, astronomers (scientists who study space) are constantly discovering new objects in the universe. – Even our solar system is incredibly large and contains countless objects. PLANETS AND THEIR MOONS – Planets are only some of the objects in our solar system. – Most of the planets (6 […]