Josh Kim APES; Period 3 12-22-11 Unit 7 SGQ & Critical Thinking 1.

Three ways in which plate tectonics have influenced life on earth include: earthquakes, formation of continents, and tsunamis. Life was influenced by earthquakes because early buildings were not made to withstand the force of an earthquake, and they often collapsed due to the stress. The need for stable edifices has employed engineers, construction workers, factory workers, and many others to create better buildings, increasing the employment level. The formation of continents has been beneficial as wells as detrimental. When Pangaea existed, people could walk over all of the available land without the need of crossing the seas. However, the separation of Pangaea and its consequent formation of continents have allowed people to live in different climates, allowing different foods and animals to grow and evolve, as well as allowing people to explore the entire ocean more easily. Tsunamis, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, killed thousands of civilians by submerging them underwater or sweeping them out to sea. This has prompted the people of tsunami-prone countries to hire geologists, oceanographers, and engineers to create better warning systems to help people evacuate before a tsunami occurs. 2. Extracting from ores and other natural deposits is obviously negatively impacting to the environment because in the process most likely the waste products and the methods use will be toxic and will not be taken care of correctly. Likewise when processing these deposits the processes taken to refine them such as smelting and etc will lead to things like tailings and spoils that are bound to have effects such as chemicals entering water, air, and food supplies. The use of mineral resources usually occurs in their implementation in manufactured goods which are made in factories. Factories produce a lot of waste and use a lot of energy thus affecting pollution and climate change forever changing the globe for humans. 3. The economic effect of resource depletion includes a spike in the prices of energy because the supply will no longer be available and therefore people will have to find alternative forms of fuel, many companies will have to pay money to compensate for their damages, and companies will have to pay to clean the pollution that they have caused. The social effects caused by resource depletion include the loss of jobs of those who mined the minerals, the inability for the poorer people to consumer higher priced energy, and the cost of pollution to the citizens health. To extend the lifetime of these minerals, people will have to learn how to live sustainably when it comes to consuming non-renewable energy. This will give more time for new non-renewable energy to form. Also, people can learn to use renewable energy more often as a way of placing less stress on the consumption of non-renewable energy. 4. Tailing and spoils are both negative side effects to mining. What spoils do is decrease biodiversity but tailings have a more direct influence on humans. As trace amounts of toxic waste enter ecosystems near cities they will infiltrate the water supply, the air, and food. Through biomagnification these toxic chemicals should begin to concentrate in the upper levels of the food system, where humans are, therefore irresponsible mining will be a health detriment to nearby cities. 5. Magnesium, bromine, and sodium chloride are abundant enough in the ocean to be

extracted profitably. They are exploited by being higher priced in the market. Another potential source is hydrothermal ore deposits that form when mineral-rich superheated water shoots out of vents in solidified magma on the ocean floor. Currently, it costs too much to extract these minerals, and there are also disputes over ownership of resources located in international waters. Another potential source of metals from the ocean floor is potato-sized manganese nodules that cover about 25-50% of the Pacific Ocean floor. They could be sucked up from the ocean floor by giant vacuum pipes or scooped up by buckets on a continuous cable operated by a mining ship. However, marine scientists are concerned about the effects of such mining on aquatic life. 6. a) Tectonic plates are huge rigid plates composed of the continental and oceanic crust and the lithosphere. They move at an extremely slow rate and have been moving throughout earth s history. Their movement atop of the earth s mantle is responsible for the splitting and joining of continents. The majority of the geologic activity at the earth s surface takes place at the boundaries of the plates, where they continuously separate, collide, or slide one another. Such movement forms mountains, causes volcanoes to erupt, and jump starts earthquakes that shake parts of the crust. b) Most earthquakes occur near a fault, such as the San Andreas Fault in California. An earthquake occurs when there is an abrupt movement on an existing fault which releases built up energy in the form of vibrations called seismic waves which move in all directions. Scientists measure the severity of an earthquake by the magnitude, measure of ground motion caused by the earthquake, of its seismic waves. Over the course of a year, scientists measure on average 1 million earthquakes using a seismograph. The Ricther scale allows them to categorize the quakes into insignificant (less than 4.0), minor (4.0-4.9), damaging (5.0-5.9), destructive (6.06.9), major (7.0-7.9), and great (over 8.0). Tsunamis are caused when faults in the ocean floor move up or down as a result of a large earthquake. c) Earthquake magnitude is measured with a seismograph and what it does is it picks up on the seismic waves that go in all directions from the epicenter of an earthquake. During the course of the earthquake the seismograph continuously reads the movement of the earth s crust until the earthquake finishes. d) If we take Japan for example, not only was the country hit by a great earthquake at 8.9 on the Richter scale, but it was followed by a large tsunami that engulfed most of the mainland. The standing water lingered for days and along with aftershocks of 5.5 or higher, the country stopped operating for weeks. Without electricity or clean water, the loss of life increased as the weeks went on. And to make it worse, Japan had some nuclear complications as a result of this earthquake. Japan is a prime example of how these natural disasters can greatly affect the economy and life of a country. The ending cost for damages of this disaster was millions, close to a trillion, dollars. The country then fell into an economic slump and is still recovering to this day. e) Based on everything that we have learned from past earthquakes and tsunamis, we can create building laws that ensure that all buildings are earthquake proof. On the other hand, to countries that aren t as developed as Japan or the United States, sustaining civil infrastructure will be a greater challenge. Also, third world countries that are more prone to earthquakes and tidal waves are usually fishing dependent countries. Therefore, most of the population will be living within 100 miles of the coast. With such a high concentration of people living near the

coast, a tsunami can be devastating to the loss of life, just like the Indonesia tsunami of 2004. My recommendation would be to move away from the coast and to a more secure area. However, this is easier said than done because people s lively hood is on the coastline. 7. Vocab list: a. Mutagens- chemicals or forms of radiation that cause mutations or changes in the DNA molecules found in cells, or that increase the frequency of such changes b. Teratogens- chemicals that cause harm or birth defects to a fetus or embryo c. Toxicology- the study of the harmful effects of chemicals on humans and other organisms d. Toxicity- a measure of how harmful a substance is e. Dose- the amount of a harmful chemical that a person has ingested, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin f. Acute effect- an immediate or rapid harmful reaction to an exposure g. Chronic effect- a permanent or long lasting consequence of exposure to a single dose or to repeated lower doses of a harmful substance h. Risk assessment- this scientific process of using statistical methods to estimate how much harm a particular hazard can cause to human health or to the environment i. Risk management- involves deciding whether or how to reduce a particular risk to a certain level and at what cost j. Non-transmissible disease- caused by something other than a living organism and does not spread from one person to another k. Infectious disease- caused when a pathogen invades the body and multiplies in its cells and tissues l. Transmissible disease- an infectious disease that can be transmitted from one person to another A) Mercury gets into the environment though pollution by coal-burning power plants, waste incinerators, and chemical manufacturing plants. It gets into our food by polluting the soil from which the crops grow. The concentration of mercury increases as it is carried through the food web due to a phenomenon known as biological magnification. Because mercury is indigestible, the amount of mercury is carried from the prey to the predator. Soon, the predator will have consumed many prey, thus his concentration of mercury will be much greater than a prey that has consumed less food laced with mercury. C) The best solution to this problem is to stop the mercury contamination at its source. It is very difficult to remove mercury from soil, and it is much easier for government officials to stop mercury pollution from contamination food in the first place as the companies can find a safe way to dispose of the mercury. 8. Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical building block that is used primarily to make polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins. Polycarbonate plastics have many applications including use in some food and drink packaging, e.g., water and infant bottles, compact discs, impact-resistant safety equipment, and medical devices. Epoxy resins are used as lacquers to coat metal products such as food cans, bottle tops, and water supply pipes. Some dental sealants and composites may also contribute to BPA exposure. BPA has been linked to heart disease, intestinal damage, infertility and reproductive issues, erectile dysfunction, diabetes and obesity, and behavioral changes in children. The best prevention from BPA is to avoid food normally contaminated with

BPA. 9. Genetic resistance by bacteria to antibiotics and antiseptics is the fact that mutated bacteria carried a gene that allowed it to survive exposure to antibiotics. After all the other bacteria died from the antibiotic, the resistant bacteria were able to reproduce and pass down its survival gene to its offspring, thus creating a colony of resistant bacteria. It is considered a normal evolutionary process because it follows the dynamics of survival of the fittest. Chapter 17 Critical Thinking Questions 2) Changes in the age structure of a human population can increase the spread of infectious diseases because when the targeted age group is relatively young, they have a longer incubation period. This means that infected people may spread the virus for several years without knowing that they are in fact contagious. Additionally, the younger age group usually implies a longer resistance period, which means that there is more time for the disease to be transmitted after the original diagnosis. In the specific case of HIV/AIDS, the disease has done more to communities than merely decimate its populations. For instance, the epidemic has lowered the average life expectancy from 62 years to 47 years. The premature death of teachers, health care workers, soldiers and other productive young adults has led to decreased food production and economic development and has disintegrated families. This disease has become so serious that countries like Botswana are expected to lose half of their adult populations within a decade. Such death rates drastically alter a country s age structure. AIDS has left more than 15 million children orphaned, many of which are forced into child labor or the sex trade. 9) In order to reduce the risk of exposure to infectious disease organisms and toxic and hazardous materials , I would implement the precautionary principle in deciding what direction to head the project. First of all, I would make a risk assessment and statistically estimate how much harm a particular disease or substance can cause to human health or to the environment. Then I would create a series of plans as a part of the risk management, in which I would decide how to reduce a particular risk to a certain level and at what cost. In order to reduce the risk of disease, we need to make sure public areas such as recreational parks, public schools, city buses, etc. all meet safety regulations in regards to sanitation and health. This can be done by having regular city standard inspections and by making resources readily available. Hand sanitizer should be present in all public areas. The same approach can be taken with hazardous materials. By enforcing existing laws and safety standards, we can lower the risk of coming in contact with such dangers.