Hydrosphere Vocab.

Water Properties/Water Distribution:

  • Adhesion: when the atoms or molecules of a substance stick to other substances

  • Cohesion: when the atoms or molecules of a substance stick together

  • Condensation: when a gas to transform into a liquid as a result of cooling

  • Density: mass per unit volume; the amount of matter in a given amount of space

  • Evaporation: when a liquid to transform into a gas as a result of heating

  • Heat of Vaporization: the amount of heat that must be absorbed if a certain quantity of liquid is vaporized at a constant temperature

  • Hydrosphere: all of the waters on Earth’s surface

  • Polarity: having a positive and negative end (pole) (i.e. Water is a polar molecule because it has a negatively charged side- the oxygen atom- and a positively charged side- the two hydrogen atoms.)

  • Precipitation: rain, snow, sleet, hail

  • Salinity: a measure of the amount of salt in a body of water

  • Solvent: a liquid or a gas that dissolves another substance

  • Specific Heat: how much heat energy it will take to raise or lower the temperature of an object

  • Surface tension: atoms and molecules in the surface of a substance exhibit the property of cohesion

  • Water Cycle: the journey water takes as it circulates from the land to the sky and back again

Fresh Water:

  • Aquifer: a body of rock that can contain water or allow water to flow through it

  • Permeability: measure of how much water can flow through a substance

  • River basin: an area of land drained by a river and its tributaries much like a bathtub catches all of the water that falls within its sides

  • Runoff: the draining away of water (or substances carried in it) from the surface of an area of land, a building or structure, etc.

  • Watershed: an area or ridge of land that separates waters flowing to different rivers, basins, or seas.

Salt Water/Oceans:

  • Aphotic Zone: the portion of a lake or ocean where there is little or no sunlight;formally defined as the depths beyond which less than 1% of sunlight penetrates.

  • Benthic Zone: the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean or a lake, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers

  • Downwelling: the downward movement of fluid, especially in the sea, the atmosphere, or deep in the earth

  • Estuary: a place where freshwater meets up with salt water; nature’s nursery

  • Hydrothermal vents: a fissure in a planet's surface from which geothermally heated water issues. Hydrothermal vents are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart, ocean basins, and hotspots.

  • Intertidal Zone: the area of the shore and seabed that is exposed to the air at low tide and submerged at high tide, i.e. the area between tide marks

  • Neritic Zone: the relatively shallow part of the ocean above the drop-off of the continental shelf, approximately 200 meters in depth

  • Open Ocean: the sunlit top layer of the ocean beyond the continental shelves; the vast bulk of the sea, it covers over 360,000,000 square kilometers of the Earth's surface and is referred to as the 'marine desert' because nutrients are lower here than in the shallow seas; life can be scarce

  • Photic Zone: surface layer of the ocean that receives sunlight

  • Phytoplankton: microscopic marine producers/base of an aquatic food web

  • Upwelling: wind-driven process in which nutrient-rich, denser, colder water moves to the surface

Water Quality:

  • Bioindicators: Organisms that indicate the health of a water ecosystem

  • Dissolved Oxygen: oxygen found in water; the higher the amount of dissolved oxygen, the healthier a water system is for organisms

  • Nitrates: groundwater contaminant that often times enters the groundwater through fertilizers, animal wastes, and sewage

  • pH (percent Hydrogen): A measure of the acidity or basicity of a substance; measured on a scale from 1-14 with the lower numbers representing the highest acidity

  • Phosphates: inorganic compound created by the the removal or replacement of one, two, or all three hydrogen atoms in phosphoric acid; used in fertilizers and detergents and is a major cause of water pollution

  • Temperature: the degree or intensity of heat present in a substance

  • Turbidity: how clear or cloudy water is; water with a high turbidity is more difficult to see through

Water Pollution/Treatment:

  • Algal bloom: a rapid increase in phytoplankton as a result of excess nutrients in the water/can serve as a bioindicator of water quality

  • Coagulation: the action or process of a liquid changing to a solid or semi-solid state

  • Disinfection: the process of cleaning something, especially with a chemical, in order to destroy bacteria

  • Filtration: any of various mechanical, physical or biological operations that separate solids from fluids (liquids or gases) by adding a medium through which only the fluid can pass

  • Flocculation: creating favorable conditions in water so that particles will stick together

  • Nonpoint Source Pollution: pollution that occurs from unidentifiable sources

  • Point Source Pollution: single, identifiable sources of pollution (In the case of water pollution, examples of point source pollutants might include a pipe, factory releasing pollutants into the water, etc.)

  • Sedimentation: the process of settling or being deposited as a sediment

  • Stewardship: taking care of something