Thursday, February 11, 2010


The differences in Earth's seasons isn't caused by how far the sun is away from the Earth. It is simply because of the tilt of the axis. The earth's axis is tilted by 23.45 degrees. The tilting is what gives us our different seasons. Since it is tilted, different parts of the Earth are oriented towards the sun at different times of the year. Summer is the warmest because the Earth is tilted directly towards the sun and Winter is the coldest and without sun the most because it is tilted the farthest away from the sun.

The solar system and all the planets are always moving. Each of the planets revolve around the sun. They also rotate on their axis. When a portion of the earth faces the sun, it is daytime, and they part that is away from the sun is experiencing nighttime. The cylce of light and dark is continuous, except at the North and South pole. The earth, which is the third planet in the Solar System, roates around the sun for different season, and spins on its axis for different times of day. While it is daytime here in America, it is nighttime on the other side of the world and vise versa. While we are eating lunch, they are sleeping, while we are sleeping, they are eating lunch, and so on and so forth.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

ForcesThat Change the Earth!!!!!

( grand canyon)
Wind-the wind causes erosion, carrying the soil to any place on earth, dropping it onto any surface, thus controlling the earth's surface.
water- streams of water can shape earth by taking sand dirt and other debris away from the land into t
he ocean creating land to appear differently.thus creating an image like the one pictured to the left!
Ice- is another form of water but it can fill in a space that is small and make that area even bigger. the picture on the right is reminants
left over from an ice storm.
heat-heat could effect the earth by making a green house effect, starting fires or simply drying something like rock, clay, lakes, or mud out by evaperizing water!
The grand canyon is a wonderfull example of all of these effects!
This link is an experiment that shows how the forces can change the Earth!
http://www.beaconlearningcenter.com/WebLessons/BreakingNews/default.htm




Properties of Sedimentary, Igneous, and Metamorphic rocks

The sedimentary rocks are limestone, coglomerate, chert/flint, shale, sandstone or arkose,geodes, and bituminous coal. Limestone is fine-grained. It fizzes in acid. Its color is either gray, tan, or cream. Coglomerate is coarse-grained. It is composed of gravel and pebbles. The gravel and pebbles are rounded. Chert/flint is made up of very fine crystals. Chert is cream or tan. Flint is black or gray. It has very smooth texture and cannot be scratched. Shale is fine-grained. It comes in many colors. So shale is layered and soft to touch. Similar-sized sand grains make up sandstone. Sandstone rock can be seen in various colors. It is in between fine-grained and coarse-grained. Geodes are round in shape. When geodes are broken open, they become beautiful crystals. Also, geodes form in limestone. Bituminous coal is black in color. It is fine-grained natural resource. In addition, coal has a low density.

There are six different kinds of igneous rock. Granite, diorite, andesite, rhyolite, basalt, and gabbro are all igneous rocks. Granite, diorite, and gabbro are coarse-grained. The abundance and natural beauty of granite makes it the best-known igneous rock. Headstones for graves are made of granite. Diorite is black and white. Also, it feels rough and bumpy. Gabbro is darker than granite and diorite. It has a green tint to the rock. Andesite, rhylolite, and basalt are fine-grained. Andesite is composed of light and dark individual crystals. Rhylolite is pink or gray. In addition, it is not as common and abundant as granite. Basalt is glassy black.


The types of metamorphic rocks are slate, schist,gneiss, marble and quartzite. Slate, schist, and gneiss are layered rocks. Slate is red, gray or black. Fine-grained clay is called slate rock. Schist is coarse-grained. Also, schist is a thin slab. Gneiss is light and dark crystals. In addition, gneiss is coarse-grained. Marble and quartzite are light-colored and non-layered rocks. Marble reacts with acid and does not scratch glass. Quartzite scratches glass.






Formation of Sedimentary, Metamorphic, and Igneous rocks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3yJArifULo&feature=PlayList&p=7C66053CC43451AA&index=96

Monday, February 8, 2010

natural, human, and greenhouse effect that change the Earth!




The matter that comprises all of Earth’s features is never lost. It is continuously being recycled.
The Earth’s crust is pushed up into mountains as a result of tectonic plate movement; at the same time, the mountains are being eroded by physical, chemical and atmospheric forces; such as tornadoes, floods, and human interactions. The eroded rubble is then recycled into new formations; like the Grand Canyon or landfills.
When the tectonic plates have movement they could have several effect on the Earths surface if they are separating you create an Earth quake where when to plates are separating and they have not fully tore apart and they still keep moving forcing them to separate making a force that makes the land move and we call an earth quake. If it moves into each other there's volcanic activity.
volcanic activity is when two plates hit each other and one goes under and becomes “molten” which means it gets extremely hot, the ground then turns into liquid. The molten finds a hole in the ground and comes out the top becoming lava. This leads me to another subject as to how the world was formed. All of the continents used to be just one big piece of land called Pangea (shown in the picture), but the land due to plate movement broke up and separated and created the seven continents we have now. This is what we call continental drift.
So far we have continental drift, volcanic activity and earth quacks as to how we have formed the land. Somethings are changed because of humans take for example landfills. landfills are full of trash which then gets covered by dirt and then refilled with more trash! creating basically mountains of trash. Another thing that humans have changed to the formation of earth is the advancements for humans like cars; they cause pollution which is a major factor of the green house effect. Green house effect is caused by an atmosphere containing gases that absorb and emit infrared radiation. Greenhouse gases trap heat within the surface-troposphere system, causing heating at the surface. when the surface becomes warmer and the atmosphere temperatures lower it causes a global warming. Ever since the mid 20th century global warming has been a major factor to the formation of earth. With the fear of Artica slowly disappearing (as shown in the video below) is the fear of the animals like polar bears and other habitual animals becoming extinct from drowning and lack of food. Artica is not the only place noticing the difference in the place due to global warming you can also see it in places like green land and Iceland in the mountains that once had miles of snow all are slowly decreasing.
what can we do to help the land allowing only natural changes to occur to the land so that it wont harm the earth! we live here so we need to preserve it. we need not one day a year to help the land but a whole life span to change the land. Grow trees don't take them down. there are many things we can do to preserve the land. If only everyone would add a little more effort to accomplish the preservation of the formation of land. for further information on helping the planet go to http://www.savingplanetearth.org/ for more information on saving the world.