APES Unit 5 Comic
Storyboard Text
- What a great day to be at the beach.
- Wow dad, why is the ground shaking! Are we gonna die?
- No you silly salamander, thats an earthquake.
- What's an earthquake dad?
- You see champ, earthquakes occur when two tectonic plates slide right past each other and release tension. That built up energy is what causes the ground to shake.
- That's cool dad, but what's a tectonic plate?
- Tectonic plates are large pieces of rock that move very slowly due to magma circulating in the mantle (convection cells)
- Kinda like you dad.
- Funny. Tectonic plates can also move toward (convergent) or away (divergent) from each other.
- That's so cool. I had no idea there were manatees swimming under the earth.
- Nooo! Not manatees silly, the mantle. It's the layer right under the earth's crust.
- Crust, like pizza crust?
- No, the crust is the layer of earth that we and everybody else live on.
- So earth is pretty much built like one giant lasagna?
- Not a bad comparison. The wet tomato sauce is like the outer core since it is the only liquid layer. The layers get denser and denser as you go down.
- Earth doesn't just have solid layers though, there are also gaseous layers known as our atmosphere.
- I've heard of that, what's that all about.
- Well there are 5 main layers of earth. We are in the troposphere, and so are the planes. Then comes the stratosphere, which is where all of the ozone that protects us from UV rays live.
- Cool. What's next?
- Then comes the mesosphere, which is really cold and where astroids burn up. After is the thermosphere, which is really really hot. And lastly, the exosphere, which is where all the satellites live.
- I had no idea!
- Hey champ, how was your school day?
- Not good. I fell asleep while my teacher was talking about soil and we have a test tomorrow.
- Don't worry, I can teach you. It's actually pretty simple.
- Thank god
- You see, we start with bedrock, the most solid soil layer. Over time, this layer gets broken down by water, wind, organisms, temperature changes, and more.
- This broken down rock is known as the "parent material" and is very similar to the type of bedrock it was made from.
- Is the parent material just as lazy as you?
- The subsoil is even more broken down than the parent material but does not hold very much organic matter. Instead, it has a lot of minerals.
- The topsoil however does have organic matter, and is probably what you think of when you think of dirt. Plants grow best in this layer.
- The organic layers sits on top of it all, it's what holds all the leaf litter and the decaying plants and animals.
- Wow. Thanks for catching me up.
- No problem. Just no more falling asleep in class.
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