Cycles ReQuiz

Gravity draws water back to Earth as rain, sleet, or snow

Solar radiation changing water from a liquid to a gas

Water that is lost through the leaves of plants

Water flowing from the surface of the Earth toward bodies of water

Water percolating (filtering through) from the surface through the soil to aquifers

The process by with plants take in carbon dioxide and sunlight to make sugar

Returns Carbon CO₂ into the atmosphere and is associated with breathing out

When dead organisms are broken down

When something is burned - such as when you drive a car that runs on fossil fuels or a forest fire

The carbon that surrounds the earth

Equilibrium of CO₂ between the atmosphere and the ocean

The process of plants and animals taken in nitrogen

The process of converting nitrogen gas into a usable form, by either bacteria or lightning

Process where a type of bacteria, changes the useable nitrogen in the soil, back to nitrogen gas

Bacteria converting nitrogen compounds into NH₃ (ammonia) or NH₄⁺ (ammonium)

makes up about 78% of Earth's atmosphere by volume

Bacteria converting ammonia (NH₃) to nitrates (NO₃) and nitrites (NO₂)

The main phosphorus reservoir

Water moving over rocks, washing phosphorus into rivers and streams

Where phosphorus mixes with oxygen to make phosphates

Water containing phosphates is absorbed by plants

Plants are eaten by consumers to get the phosphate they need

Phosphorus is broken down in waste and returned to water or soil

Large amounts of phosphorus are carried by waterways into the ocean where it concentrates at the bottom as rocks