Abstract:The four major realms of earth, namely, lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere interact with and transform each other. Lithosphere represents the Greek word “lithos,” which means rock and ...The four major realms of earth, namely, lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere interact with and transform each other. Lithosphere represents the Greek word “lithos,” which means rock and it represents earth crust. Although it is made up of more than a hundred elements, just eight elements, oxygen (O), silicon (Si), aluminium (Al), iron (Fe), calcium (Ca), sodium (Na), potassium (K), and magnesium (Mg) contribute more than 99% of its volume [1]. It includes land surface and ocean floor with a total width of around 70-100 km. All the surface water including rivers, lakes, glaciers, polar ice caps and oceans form the hydrosphere. The gas blanket surrounding the earth is called atmosphere and is composed of many layers generally termed as air. The biosphere represents all the living organism present on earth. The biosphere is dominated by humans and their (anthro-pogenic) activities are bringing major changes in all realms of earth in the form of pollution. The pollution is not only threatening the entire biosphere including humans. In different sections of this chapter we have discussed scenarios related to pollution of air (atmosphere), inland water (smallest fraction of hydrosphere) and soil (constituent of lithosphere).Read More
Publication Year: 2020
Publication Date: 2020-09-03
Language: en
Type: other
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot