Water! The band Papadosio has once sang, “Please remember that water comprises over 70 percent of the mature human body, and covers the same amount of our planet. Water is the very source of all life.” This is an important statement because it shows how significant water is to everybody and every creature on earth. Water shapes everything, and one thing in particular water shapes is the state of Michigan. Michigan is over 50, 000 miles of land between the two peninsulas, and it is surrounded by four great lakes. These lakes include Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, and Lake Erie. The Upper Peninsula includes some of the oldest rock formations, many streams and lakes, and a very heavy forest. The Lower Peninsula includes a ton of land area, a few slopes (not mountains), and a few lakes. Michigan is abundant with fresh water. A curious, observed fact about Michigan is that the state is shaped like a mitten! Investigating more about water and glaciers will begin to explain why Michigan is a mitten. The water cycle is a great place to start. Water will evaporate into the atmosphere, and it will be condensed into clouds. While the clouds become heavier and heavier the condensed water will become precipitation. Continuing on with the cycle water will either become soaked into the ground (creating ground water), or it will run off the land to be lead into surface water. Surface water includes ponds, lakes, rivers, etc. If water is soaked into the ground then it will be
The water cycle in the deciduous forest occurs mostly in the stage of transpiration. Although there are bodies of water in the deciduous forest, water also evaporates from the leaves of the plants and into the atmosphere. The water vapor will condense into tiny droplets which form clouds; the clouds will then return the water back to the ground in the form of precipitation. The water falls to the floor of the deciduous forest and travels into the roots of the plants. The cycle will then start over again.
The shape of Michigan is something very unique to us. Anytime you look at a map of the Earth, you can find Michigan in two seconds. If you’re in the Upper Peninsula, you can point to exactly where you are. Or if you want to tell someone where a city is located in Michigan, and you don’t have a map, you can just hold up your hand and point. For those of us born and raised in Michigan, it seems like a completely normal thing to do. The shape of Michigan is really unique, with two separate peninsulas to tell the story of how our state was shaped into the land we see today. Water has been the predominant factor in shaping Michigan, starting with glaciers over ten million years ago, to rivers, rain and lakes that still shape it today. Water
People often wonder how the continents, states, and other landforms develop their shape and structure. Our earth, continents, countries, and states developed over billions of years and water played a huge roll in the development, shape, and structure. Within this exploratory essay you will gain knowledge on how Michigan, specifically, was shaped and how water affects the state in many ways and will continue to do so every single day until the earth ceases to exist.
Evaporation happens every day, everywhere on Earth. It is the process of water turning into water vapor. It then travels to the clouds and condenses. This is condensation, where water vapor turns into clouds. When the clouds get too heavy, they then drop all the water in them. This stage is precipitation, or rain, snow, sleet, or hail. It then runs off into a stream, lake, creek, or ocean, the cycle then repeats. This cycle is called the water cycle.
Clouds- Clouds are a mass of water or ice droplets in the air. An example of a
The day to day impact of human activities on the formation of Michigan is highly underestimated and not often considered. Human activity has positively impacted the formation of Michigan but there has also been negative
For many years, I have always wondered how Michigan was shaped. I did not realize that water could have such a huge impact on the way Michigan was made. From doing research, I recognized that there has been four Ice Ages on Earth. The last Ice Age, Pleistocene Epoch began and ended two million years to 12,000 years. At this time, hot and cold temperatures swayed and glaciers receded to advance into the interglacial periods. In the United States, and around the world glaciers have carved out our landscape, making what the world is today.
Growing up, we all went through the water cycle lesson and we will never forget it. The reason being, we encounter the water cycle throughout our entire life and it will always effect our systems and more importantly our water system. As illustrated in the picture, our water cycle includes the processes of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, which then goes to many places. During evaporation, the sun is used as a main power to make this happen. The sun’s rays beat down onto the ground creating all of the moisture and water to fizzle into a gas state into the atmosphere and get stored away into the clouds. When it is stored into the clouds it is condensing. Condensation means that the gas is again forming itself back into its liquid state to get ready to return to Earth. The condensation then forms into precipitation. Precipitation comes in many different forms. You can see it as rain, snow, sleet, or hail making its way back to us. What happens to it then depends on the area. The water might end up as runoff, or become
The water cycle is essential to the water systems surrounding Michigan. Shown on the picture, the water cycle has several steps, but the main processes are evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. Evaporation occurs when the water heats up and changes into a gaseous state, dispersing into the atmosphere.
The hydrological cycle is where water is stored in places like oceans and ponds, and then evaporated. Next, the water is condensed. Finally, water is rained down as precipitation and accumulates in ponds and oceans. This cycle continues repeatedly. Human activities that are detrimental to this cycle
It is best described as water evaporating into the atmosphere and continues to condense into the clouds. It will than fall back to earth as precipitation. This precipitation soaks down into the soil as a process called infiltration, where it joins the groundwater, or it will run off over the landscape to join surface water. The surface water may evaporate out of the lake and back into the atmosphere or the water will move through the soil towards the groundwater and be taken up by plants that will put it back into the atmosphere. This process will just keep continuing and continuing over and
The Importance Of Water To Living Organisms Water is normally the most abundant component of any living organism. As most human cells are approximately 80% water and 60% of the human body is made up of it, it is extremely important in many different ways to both the survival and the well being of living organisms. Evolutionists believe that life probably originated in water and even today thousands of organisms make their home in it. Water also provides the medium in which all biochemical reactions take place. The importance of water to living organisms originates from its many properties including its solvent properties, its high specific heat capacity, its high latent heat of vaporization,
HYDROLOGIC CYCLE The hydrologic cycle is a constant movement of water above, on, and below the earth's surface. It is a cycle that replenishes ground water supplies. It begins as water vaporizes into the atmosphere from vegetation, soil, lakes, rivers, snowfields and oceans-a process called evapotranspiration. As the water vapor rises it condenses to form clouds that return water to the land through precipitation: rain, snow, or hail. Precipitation falls on the earth and either percolates into the soil or flows across the ground. Usually it does both. When precipitation percolates into the soil it is called infiltration when it flows across the ground it is called surface run off. The amount of precipitation that infiltrates, versus the
Water is essential for life. It's found everywhere on Earth, from the oceans, to little puddles, to the morning dew. In every place where water flows on this planet, there life could be found. An analysis of life on earth discloses that water has played a crucial role in the creation and evolution of life. Liquid water is so essential, that astrobiologists consider finding water on other planets a significant first step in the search for life.
Human existence is dependent on water; without it we simply cannot survive. But what is water? “Water is defined in Chambers Science and Technology Dictionary (Chambers, 1988) as a colourless, odourless, tasteless liquid comprising the chemical elements of hydrogen and oxide.” (Stookes, 2009, p. 328) Approximately 70% of the Earths’ surface is covered in water, however only around 2.5% of this is fresh water which is fit for human consumption, and of this 2.5% less than 1% is accessible. See (Change, 2006). Therefore it is imperative that the fresh water supplies which human existence relies so heavily upon are kept free from pollution in all its forms.