General information and history of the Earth
ENGLISH FOR GEOPHYSICS IN COMMUNICATION
Учебное пособие
Владивосток
Министерство образования и науки Российской Федерации
Федеральное агенство по образованию
Дальневосточный государственный университет
Институт окружающей среды
Ю.О. Каморная
English for geophysics in communication
Учебное пособие
Для студентов 1,2 курсов
Института окружающей среды
Владивосток
Издательство Дальневосточного университета
Данное пособие предназначено для студентов 1, 2 курсов геофизического факультета Института окружающей среды. Пособие имеет своей целью совершенствование навыков чтения и перевода специализированных текстов, а так же развитие навыков говорения и применения специализированных терминов в устной речи.
Пособие состоит из 5 глав и имеет глоссарий для облегчения перевода. Тексты всех глав снабжены лексическими упражнениями и соответствующим словарным минимумом. Упражнения нацелены на развитие как монологовых, так и групповых навыков общения на заданную тему.
CHAPTER I
Earth
I. Learn active vocabulary:
terrestrial planets – планеты земной группы
Solar System – солнечная система
density – плотность
Universe - вселенная
to exist - существовать
to form - формировать
surface - поверхность
condition - условие
layer - слой
radiation - радиация
to divide - делить
tectonic plate – тектоническая плита
liquid - жидкий
outer core – внешнее ядро
interior - внутренний
solid mantle – твердая мантия
inner core – внутреннее ядро
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to interact with - взаимодействовать
axis - ось
rotation - вращение
sidereal year – звездный год
to tilt – наклоняться, поворачиваться
seasonal variations – сезонные изменения
satellite - спутник
tides – приливы и отливы
impact - удар
solar nebula – солнечная туманность
shape – форма
crust – земная кора
glancing blow – скользящий удар
to merge - поглощать
outgassing - обезгаживание
to condense – уплотнять, конденсировать
vapor - пар
to absorb – поглощать, впитывать
glacial - ледниковый
explosion - взрыв
to diversify – разнообразить, изменять
ice age – ледниковый период
polar – полярный
II. Read and translate the text:
General information and history of the Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Earth is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the Earth, Planet Earth, the World, and Terra.
Home to millions of species, including humans, Earth is the only place in the universe where life is known to exist. Scientific evidence indicates that the planet formed 4.54 billion years ago, and life appeared on its surface within a billion years. Since then, Earth’s biosphere has significantly altered the atmosphere and other abiotic conditions on the planet, enabling the proliferation of aerobic organisms as well as the formation of the ozone layer which, together with Earth’s magnetic field, blocks harmful radiation, permitting life on land.
Earth’s outer surface is divided into several rigid segments, or tectonic plates, that gradually migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of the surface is covered with salt-water oceans, the remainder consisting of continents and islands; liquid water, necessary for all known life, is not known to exist on any other planet’s surface. Earth’s interior remains active, with a thick layer of relatively solid mantle, a liquid outer core that generates a magnetic field, and a solid iron inner core.
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Earth interacts with other objects in outer space, including the Sun and the Moon. At present, Earth orbits the Sun once for every roughly 366.26 times it rotates about its axis. This length of time is a sidereal year, which is equal to 365.26 solar days. The Earth’s axis of rotation is tilted 23.4° away from the perpendicular to its orbital plane, producing seasonal variations on the planet’s surface with a period of one tropical year (365.24 solar days). Earth’s only known natural satellite, the Moon, which began orbiting it about 4.53 billion years ago, provides ocean tides, stabilizes the axial tilt and gradually slows the planet’s rotation. A cometary bombardment during the early history of the planet played a role in the formation of the oceans. Later, asteroid impacts caused significant changes to the surface environment.
History
Scientists have been able to reconstruct detailed information about the planet’s past. Earth and the other planets in the Solar System formed 4.54 billion years ago out of the solar nebula, a disk-shaped mass of dust and gas left over from the formation of the Sun. Initially molten, the outer layer of the planet Earth cooled to form a solid crust when water began accumulating in the atmosphere. The Moon formed soon afterwards, possibly as the result of a Mars-sized object (sometimes called Theia) with about 10% of the Earth’s mass impacting the Earth in a glancing blow. Some of this object’s mass would have merged with the Earth and a portion would have been ejected into space, but enough material would have been sent into orbit to form the Moon.
Outgassing and volcanic activity produced the primordial atmosphere. Condensing water vapor, augmented by ice and liquid water delivered by asteroids and the larger proto-planets, comets, and trans-Neptunian objects produced the oceans. The highly energetic chemistry is believed to have produced a self-replicating molecule around 4 billion years ago, and half a billion years later, the last common ancestor of all life existed.
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The development of photosynthesis allowed the Sun’s energy to be harvested directly by life forms; the resultant oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere and resulted in a layer of ozone in the upper atmosphere. The incorporation of smaller cells within larger ones resulted in the development of complex cells called eukaryotes. True multicellular organisms formed as cells within colonies became increasingly specialized. Aided by the absorption of harmful ultraviolet radiation by the ozone layer, life colonized the surface of Earth.
Beginning with almost no dry land, the total amount of surface lying above the oceans has steadily increased. During the past two billion years, for example, the total size of the continents has doubled. As the surface continually reshaped itself, over hundreds of millions of years, continents formed and broke up. The continents migrated across the surface, occasionally combining to form a supercontinent. Roughly 750 million years ago (mya), the earliest known supercontinent, Rodinia, began to break apart. The continents later recombined to form Pannotia, 600–540 mya, then finally Pangaea, which broke apart 180 mya.
Since the 1960s, it has been hypothesized that severe glacial action between 750 and 580 mya, during the Neoproterozoic, covered much of the planet in a sheet of ice. This hypothesis has been termed “Snowball Earth”, and is of particular interest because it preceded the Cambrian explosion, when multicellular life forms began to proliferate.
Following the Cambrian explosion, about 535 mya, there have been five mass extinctions. The last extinction event occurred 65 mya, when a meteorite collision probably triggered the extinction of the (non-avian) dinosaurs and other large reptiles, but spared small animals such as mammals, which then resembled shrews. Over the past 65 million years, mammalian life has diversified, and several mya, an African ape-like animal gained the ability to stand upright. This enabled tool use and encouraged communication that provided the nutrition and stimulation needed for a larger brain. The development of agriculture, and then civilization, allowed humans to influence the Earth in a short time span as no other life form had, affecting both the nature and quantity of other life forms.
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The present pattern of ice ages began about 40 mya, then intensified during the Pleistocene about 3 mya. The polar regions have since undergone repeated cycles of glaciation and thaw, repeating every 40–100,000 years. The last ice age ended 10,000 years ago.
Notes:
last common ancestor – последний общий предок
eukaryotes - эукариоты
multicellular organisms – многоклеточные организмы
stand upright – прямохождение
III. Answer the questions:
1. What kind of planet is the Earth?
2. What is the largest terrestrial planet in the Solar System in diameter, mass and density?
3. When did the Earth form?
4. What do you know about the Earth’s outer surface and its interior?
5. Why is sidereal year different from tropical year?
6. The Earth’s only known natural satellite is the Moon, is not it?
7. How did the Moon occur?
8. What are the main points of the Earth formation?
9. What were the reasons of the oceans appearing?
10. What were the results of developing of photosynthesis?
11. How did the planet’s surface change?
12. When did the severe glacial action begin?
13. How many extinctions were there on the Earth and what were the consequences?
14. When did the present pattern of ice age begin?
IV. Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Explain why.
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