Solutions for Chapter 15: Nonrenewable Energy

Tiny solid and liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere.

The reflectivity of a substance, usually expressed as a percentage of the incident radiation reflected.

Thousands of small planetlike bodies, ranging in size from a few hundred kilometers to less than a kilometer, whose orbits lie mainly between those of Mars and Jupiter.

A sedimentary rock made of broken fragments of preexisting rock.

A cone-shaped deposit at the base of the continental slope. The sediment is transported to the fan by turbidity currents that follow submarine canyons.

The lifting and removal of loose material by wind.

The sudden release of stored strain in rocks that results in movement along a fault.

Groups of gravitationally bound galaxies that sometimes contain thousands of galaxies.

The concept of an Earth-centered universe.

Seafloor sediments consisting of minerals that crystallize from seawater. An important example is manganese nodules.

A rock formed by the crystallization of molten magma.

Any portion of a meteoroid that survives its traverse through Earth’s atmosphere and strikes Earth’s surface.

See Jovian planet.

A temporary lake in a playa.

A variable radio source of small size that emits radio pulses in very regular periods.

An end moraine formed as the ice front stagnated during glacial retreat.

The layer of rock and mineral fragments that nearly everywhere covers Earth’s surface.

The maximum quantity of water vapor that the air can hold at any given temperature and pressure.

A mechanism that contributes to plate motion in which cool, dense oceanic crust sinks into the mantle and “pulls” the trailing lithosphere along.

The solstice that occurs on June 21–22 in the Northern Hemisphere and on December 21–22 in the Southern Hemisphere.