The New Childrens Encyclopedia

42 MINING People need to dig up the resources from the Earth’s crust before they can use them. This is called mining. There are ...

RICHES FROM THE EARTH 43 FOSSIL FUELS Coal, oil, and natural gas are fossil fuels. These vital resources formed from the remains ...

Erosion Earth’s landscape is constantly changing, as rock and soil are worn away by the destructive effects of water, wind, ice, ...

ICE EROSION About 10 percent of Earth’s land surface is covered by slow-moving masses of ice called glaciers. As glaciers move, ...

A look at time What time is it right now? The answer depends on where you are. If it’s noon in Santiago, Chile, it will be midni ...

A LOOK AT TIME 47 THE TIME BELOW IS... Some countries are split into several time zones, whereas others lie in just one. If you ...

48 Precious water Without water, life on Earth could not exist. This vital resource fills the world’s oceans, lakes, and rivers ...

PRECIOUS WATER 49 Underground water Some of the water that falls as rain seeps into the soil and into the rocks below to become ...

The world’s oceans Earth is known as the “blue planet,” after the oceans that cover two-thirds of its surface. Much of the ocean ...

THE WORLD’S OCEANS 51 Ocean circulation The circulation of the ocean partly controls climate, because warm or cold air masses mo ...

PROTECTING EARTH The atmosphere plays a vital role in protecting life on Earth. It absorbs much of the Sun’s harmful rays but al ...

ATMOSPHERE AND CLIMATE 53 WEATHER MACHINE The Sun heats Earth’s surface, which warms the atmosphere. Warm air rises, and cool ai ...

54 Extreme weather These days we can watch the weather from space and even forecast it, but the one thing we cannot do is contro ...

EXTREME WEATHER 55 EARTH
HAILSTONES Hail forms inside huge cumulonimbus clouds and often falls during a storm. Most of the tim ...

What is the greatest threat to Australia’s coral reef? Find out on pages 76–77 Only simple organisms, such as algae, can survive ...

Definition: Environment is the natural surroundings or conditions in which a plant, organism, or animal is found. Ecology is the ...

58 A shared planet Humans are not the only species on the planet. We share it with at least 1.6 million other types of animal an ...

A SHARED PLANET 59 THE CARBON CYCLE Carbon is a vital element to all life on Earth. Its atoms move in a natural cycle between la ...

60 Habitats All living things need a place where they can live and breed successfully. This place is called a habitat. Habitats ...

HABITATS 61 BIOMES OF THE WORLD Ecologists group similar types of ecosystem into areas called biomes. Each type of biome, such a ...