Earth Science - Earth, Weather, and Astronomy
This domain covers Earth’s interior and rocks, weather systems, and astronomy. Niigata items often connect geology to the 2004 Chuetsu earthquake and weather to Sea of Japan snow, so link each fact to a process rather than memorizing isolated labels.
Earth and geology
- Layers: crust, mantle, liquid outer core, solid inner core.
- Plate boundaries are convergent, divergent, or transform; earthquakes occur at faults.
- P waves are longitudinal and faster; S waves are transverse and cannot pass through liquid.
- Rocks: igneous (granite, basalt), sedimentary (strata, fossils), metamorphic; the rock cycle links them.
- Weathering, erosion, and deposition build and break landscapes.
Weather
- The troposphere holds weather; pressure falls with altitude; wind blows from high to low pressure.
- Humidity, dew point, condensation, clouds, and precipitation are linked.
- Cold fronts are steep and bring thunderstorms; warm fronts are gentle.
- Winter: the Siberian high sends cold dry air over the Sea of Japan; the air picks up moisture and rises over mountains, giving heavy snow in Niigata.
Astronomy
- Rotation causes day and night; revolution plus a 23.4° tilt causes seasons.
- Moon phases depend on the Moon–Earth–Sun angle; the synodic month is about 29.5 days.
- Solar system: terrestrial inner planets and gas or ice giants outer; asteroids and comets.
- Star color indicates temperature: blue is hottest, red is coolest.
Worked example
Explain heavy snow in Niigata in winter. Cold dry air from the Siberian high crosses the Sea of Japan, gains water vapor and heat, then is forced up by the Echigo mountains. Rising air cools, condenses, and forms snow clouds. The reasoning links pressure pattern, moisture supply, and orographic lift, not just cold temperature.
Traps
- Saying seasons are caused by distance from the Sun.
- Confusing rotation and revolution.
- Thinking S waves pass through the outer core.
- Mixing cold-front and warm-front weather.
- Treating Moon phases as Earth’s shadow.