Free NY Regents Earth Science Exam Flashcards

Igneous (cooled from magma/lava), sedimentary (compacted/cemented sediment or precipitated chemicals), and metamorphic (existing rock changed by heat and pressure without fully melting). Any rock can become any other family over time.

Slow underground cooling gives crystals time to grow large, producing coarse-grained intrusive rock (e.g., granite). Fast surface cooling gives fine grains or glass, producing extrusive rock (e.g., basalt). Crystal size records cooling rate.

Cleavage is breakage along flat, repeating planes of weakness in the crystal structure (e.g., mica sheets, halite cubes). Fracture is irregular breakage (e.g., quartz). The difference reflects internal atomic arrangement.

Surface color varies with impurities and weathering, but streak (the color of the powdered mineral on a streak plate) is consistent. Hematite can look silver or red yet always leaves a reddish-brown streak.

Cooling environment and source magma control mineral content. The ESRT 'Scheme for Igneous Rock Identification' links texture, color/density, and mineral composition (felsic to mafic) so you can name a rock from its grain size and minerals.

Matching continental coastlines, matching fossils and rock types across oceans, mid-ocean ridges, seafloor age symmetry, magnetic stripe reversals, and earthquake/volcano belts. Together they show plates move on the asthenosphere.

Divergent: plates move apart, new crust forms (mid-ocean ridge). Convergent: plates collide; denser plate subducts, building trenches, mountains, and volcanoes. Transform: plates slide past each other, causing earthquakes (e.g., San Andreas).

Mantle convection: heat from Earth's interior makes warm, less-dense rock rise and cool, denser rock sink, dragging the rigid plates above. Ridge push and slab pull at subduction zones also contribute.

A hot spot stays roughly fixed in the mantle while the plate slides over it. Each volcano is carried away and goes extinct, so islands grow older with distance from the active vent—recording the plate's direction and speed.

S-waves are shear waves and cannot travel through liquids. Their absence on the far side of Earth (the S-wave shadow zone) is the main evidence that the outer core is liquid. P-waves slow but still pass through it.

Use the ESRT P-wave/S-wave travel-time graph: the gap between P and S arrival times gives distance to the epicenter. Three stations' distance circles intersect at the epicenter (triangulation). One station gives distance only, not direction.

Physical (mechanical) weathering breaks rock into smaller pieces without changing its minerals—e.g., frost wedging, abrasion. Chemical weathering changes mineral composition—e.g., oxidation (rust), carbonic-acid dissolution of limestone.

Warm, humid climates speed chemical weathering (heat plus abundant water drive reactions). Cold climates with repeated freeze-thaw favor physical (frost) weathering. Hot, dry deserts weather slowly because little water is available.

Weathering breaks rock in place. Erosion moves the weathered sediment by water, wind, ice, or gravity. Deposition drops the sediment when the transporting agent loses energy. They are three sequential steps.

Larger, denser, rounder particles settle first as water slows; small, light, flat particles stay suspended longest. So a slowing stream deposits gravel before sand before clay, producing sorted, often graded layers.

Velocity is highest on steep gradients and on the outside of meander bends, where erosion dominates. On the inside of bends and where the channel flattens, water slows and deposits sediment (point bars).

Porosity is the percentage of open pore space in a material. Permeability is how easily water flows through connected pores. Clay can be highly porous yet nearly impermeable because its tiny pores are poorly connected.

U-shaped valleys, polished and striated (scratched) bedrock, erratics (out-of-place boulders), and unsorted till/moraines all indicate past glaciers. Streams instead carve V-shaped valleys and deposit sorted sediment.

Underlying rock structure and the balance of uplift vs. erosion. Plateaus have flat-lying resistant rock at high elevation; mountains have folded/faulted or uplifted rock; plains are low, flat regions of gentle gradient and weak relief.

Closely spaced contour lines mean a steep slope; widely spaced lines mean gentle terrain. Gradient = change in field value / distance, using the ESRT gradient equation. Contour lines never cross and bend upstream (V points uphill) across streams.

Unequal solar heating of Earth's surface. Differences in heating create temperature, density, and air-pressure differences, which generate winds, evaporation, and storms. Earth's internal heat affects geology, not day-to-day weather.

Relative humidity is how full the air is with vapor compared with its capacity at that temperature. When air cools to its dew point (temperature = dew point), it reaches 100% saturation and water vapor condenses into clouds, fog, or dew.

A cold front shoves dense cold air under warm air, lifting it steeply for brief, intense storms, then cooler/drier air. A warm front slides warm air gently over cold air, giving widespread, longer-lasting light precipitation, then warming.

High pressure: sinking air, clockwise outward winds (N. Hemisphere), usually clear, dry, fair weather. Low pressure: rising air, counterclockwise inward winds, clouds and precipitation. Air moves from high toward low pressure.

Pressure is the weight of overlying air. Higher up, less atmosphere sits above you, so the air presses down with less force. This is why mountaintops have lower pressure (and thinner air) than sea level.

Condensation releases stored latent heat into the surrounding air. That energy warms the air, encourages more rising, and fuels cloud and storm growth—an important energy source for thunderstorms and hurricanes.

By day, land heats faster than water; warm air over land rises and cooler air flows in from the water (sea/lake breeze). At night land cools faster, so the flow reverses and air moves from land toward water (land breeze).

A station model packs many variables around one point: temperature and dew point (left), pressure (upper right, coded), present weather, cloud cover (shaded circle), and a wind barb showing direction (from) and speed (flags/feathers).

Latitude (sun angle), elevation, proximity to large bodies of water, ocean currents, prevailing winds, and mountain barriers (windward = wet, leeward = dry rain shadow). Latitude is usually the strongest single control.

Albedo is the fraction of sunlight a surface reflects. Snow and ice are high-albedo (reflective); dark ocean and forest are low-albedo (absorbing). Melting ice exposes darker surfaces, which absorb more heat and melt more ice—a reinforcing feedback.

Weather is the atmosphere's short-term, day-to-day state; climate is the long-term average (decades) of weather for a region. A single cold day does not disprove a warming climate trend, which is based on long-term data.

Earth's axis stays tilted ~23.5 degrees as it revolves, so each hemisphere alternately tilts toward or away from the Sun. This changes sun angle and daylight length—not Earth's distance from the Sun (we're actually nearest in January).

Rotation is Earth spinning on its axis (~24 hours), causing day/night and the apparent east-to-west motion of the Sun and stars. Revolution is Earth orbiting the Sun (~365.25 days), causing the yearly cycle and seasonal changes.

The Sun always lights half the Moon. As the Moon orbits Earth (~29.5 days), we see different fractions of that lit half, from new to full and back. Phases are NOT caused by Earth's shadow—that's a lunar eclipse.

Solar eclipse: Moon passes between Sun and Earth (new Moon), casting its shadow on Earth. Lunar eclipse: Earth passes between Sun and Moon (full Moon), and Earth's shadow falls on the Moon. Both require near-perfect alignment.

Spring tides (largest range) occur at new and full Moon when Sun and Moon align, combining their gravity. Neap tides (smallest range) occur at first/third quarter when the Sun and Moon pull at right angles and partly cancel.

Star color reveals surface temperature: blue/white = hottest, red = coolest. A Hertzsprung-Russell diagram plots luminosity vs. temperature, grouping stars into the main sequence, giants, supergiants, and white dwarfs.

Light from distant galaxies is shifted toward longer (red) wavelengths, showing they are moving away from us. More distant galaxies recede faster—evidence supporting the expanding-universe and Big Bang models.

Planets closer to the Sun travel shorter orbital paths and feel stronger gravity, giving higher orbital speeds and shorter periods. Mercury orbits in months; Neptune takes about 165 years (Kepler's laws of motion).

It lists each planet's distance from the Sun, period of revolution and rotation, diameter, mass, density, and number of moons. Use it to compare planets, spot terrestrial vs. gas giants by density, and answer orbit-speed questions.

In an undisturbed sequence of sedimentary layers, the oldest rocks are at the bottom and the youngest at the top. Folding, faulting, or overturning can disturb this order, so check for tilting before applying it.

A feature that cuts across rock—such as a fault or an igneous intrusion—must be younger than the rock it cuts, because the rock had to exist first. This pairs with superposition to order geologic events.

A buried erosional surface or gap representing missing time when rock was eroded or never deposited. It signals that part of the rock record is absent, so events between the layers cannot be read directly.

A species that was geographically widespread but existed for only a short span of geologic time. Both traits let geologists correlate and date rock layers in different places. The ESRT shows New York index fossils by time period.

A half-life is the time for half of a radioactive parent isotope to decay to daughter product. After two half-lives, 1/4 of the parent remains; after three, 1/8. The parent-to-daughter ratio gives a rock's absolute age in years.

The 'Geologic History of New York State' chart shows eras and periods, their age boundaries (in millions of years), index fossils, major life forms, and tectonic/mountain-building events—letting you place a fossil or event in geologic time.

Density = mass / volume (from the ESRT Equations page). It identifies materials and explains why denser oceanic plates subduct beneath continental plates, why mafic igneous rock is denser than felsic, and why warm air rises.

It lists minerals by hardness, cleavage/fracture, color, luster, streak, and use, plus their chemical composition and the rock(s) they form. Match observed properties to a row to identify an unknown mineral.

Maps of New York landscape regions and surface bedrock, plus charts for relative humidity/dew point, weather symbols, planetary winds, and the electromagnetic spectrum. Knowing each chart's location saves time on cluster questions.

Earth and Space Sciences Regents: 9-11 phenomenon clusters, 45-55 questions (~60% multiple-choice, ~40% constructed-response), 3 hours, passing scale score of 65. New-exam students must finish required Investigations first; the legacy Physical Setting exam still uses the older reference tables and lab performance test during the transition.