Given a context passage, generate a question from the passage such that its answer is shortest continous span from the passage.

[Q]: Some minerals are very useful. An ore is a rock that contains minerals with useful elements. Aluminum in bauxite ore (Figure 1.1) is extracted from the ground and refined to be used in aluminum foil and many other products. The cost of creating a product from a mineral depends on how abundant the mineral is and how much the extraction and refining processes cost. Environmental damage from these processes is often not figured into a products cost. It is important to use mineral resources wisely. Geologic processes create and concentrate minerals that are valuable natural resources. Geologists study geological formations and then test the physical and chemical properties of soil and rocks to locate possible ores and determine their size and concentration. A mineral deposit will only be mined if it is profitable. A concentration of minerals is only called an ore deposit if it is profitable to mine. There are many ways to mine ores. Aluminum is made from the aluminum- bearing minerals in bauxite. Surface mining allows extraction of ores that are close to Earths surface. Overlying rock is blasted and the rock that contains the valuable minerals is placed in a truck and taken to a refinery. As pictured in Figure 1.2, surface mining includes open-pit mining and mountaintop removal. Other methods of surface mining include strip mining, placer mining, and dredging. Strip mining is like open pit mining but with material removed along a strip. These different forms of surface mining are methods of extracting ores close to Earths surface. Placers are valuable minerals found in stream gravels. Californias nickname, the Golden State, can be traced back to the discovery of placer deposits of gold in 1848. The gold weathered out of hard metamorphic rock in the western Sierra Nevada, which also contains deposits of copper, lead, zinc, silver, chromite, and other valuable minerals. The Underground mining is used to recover ores that are deeper into Earths surface. Miners blast and tunnel into rock to gain access to the ores. How underground mining is approached from above, below, or sideways depends on the placement of the ore body, its depth, the concentration of ore, and the strength of the surrounding rock. Underground mining is very expensive and dangerous. Fresh air and lights must also be brought into the tunnels for the miners, and accidents are far too common. The ores journey to becoming a useable material is only just beginning when the ore leaves the mine (Figure separated out of the ore. A few methods for extracting ore are: heap leaching: the addition of chemicals, such as cyanide or acid, to remove ore. flotation: the addition of a compound that attaches to the valuable mineral and floats. smelting: roasting rock, causing it to segregate into layers so the mineral can be extracted. To extract the metal from the ore, the rock is melted at a temperature greater than 900o C, which requires a lot of energy. Extracting metal from rock is so energy-intensive that if you recycle just 40 aluminum cans, you will save the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline.
[A]: when valuable minerals are taken from stream gravels, this is called


[Q]: Humans use six times as much water today as they did 100 years ago. People living in developed countries use a far greater proportion of the worlds water than people in less developed countries. What do people use all of that water for? Besides drinking and washing, people need water for agriculture, industry, household uses, and recreation (Figure Water use can be consumptive or non-consumptive, depending on whether the water is lost to the ecosystem. Non-consumptive water use includes water that can be recycled and reused. For example, the water that goes down the drain and enters the sewer system is purified and then redistributed for reuse. By recycling water, the overall water consumption is reduced. Consumptive water use takes the water out of the ecosystem. Can you name some examples of consumptive water use? Some of the worlds farmers still farm without irrigation by choosing crops that match the amount of rain that falls in their area. But some years are wet and others are dry. For farmers to avoid years in which they produce little or no food, many of the worlds crops are produced using irrigation. Water used for home, industrial, and agricultural purposes in different regions. Globally more than two-thirds of water is for agriculture. Three popular irrigation methods are: Overhead sprinklers. Trench irrigation: canals carry water from a water source to the fields. Flood irrigation: fields are flooded with water. All of these methods waste water. Between 15% and 36% percent of the water never reaches the crops because it evaporates or leaves the fields as runoff. Water that runs off a field often takes valuable soil with it. A much more efficient way to water crops is drip irrigation (Figure 1.2). With drip irrigation, pipes and tubes deliver small amounts of water directly to the soil at the roots of each plant or tree. The water is not sprayed into the air or over the ground, so nearly all of it goes directly into the soil and plant roots. Why do farmers use wasteful irrigation methods when water-efficient methods are available? Many farmers and farming corporations have not switched to more efficient irrigation methods for two reasons: 1. Drip irrigation and other more efficient irrigation methods are more expensive than sprinklers, trenches, and flooding. 2. In the United States and some other countries, the government pays for much of the cost of the water that is used for agriculture. Because farmers do not pay the full cost of their water use, they do not have any financial incentive to use less water. What ideas can you come up with to encourage farmers to use more efficient irrigation systems? Aquaculture is a different type of agriculture. Aquaculture is farming to raise fish, shellfish, algae, or aquatic plants (Figure 1.3). As the supplies of fish from lakes, rivers, and the oceans dwindle, people are getting more fish from aquaculture. Raising fish increases our food resources and is especially valuable where protein sources are limited. Farmed fish are becoming increasingly common in grocery stores all over the world. Workers at a fish farm harvest fish they will sell to stores. Growing fish in a large scale requires that the fish stocks are healthy and protected from predators. The species raised must be hearty, inexpensive to feed, and able to reproduce in captivity. Wastes must be flushed out to keep animals healthy. Raising shellfish at farms can also be successful. For some species, aquaculture is very successful and environmental harm is minimal. But for other species, aqua- culture can cause problems. Natural landscapes, such as mangroves, which are rich ecosystems and also protect coastlines from storm damage, may be lost to fish farms (Figure 1.4). For fish farmers, keeping costs down may be a problem since coastal land may be expensive and labor costs may be high. Large predatory fish at the 4th or 5th trophic level must eat a lot, so feeding large numbers of these fish is expensive and environmentally costly. Farmed fish are genetically different from wild stocks, and if they escape into the wild they may cause problems for native fish. Because the organisms live so close together
[A]: water that can be recycled and reused is called ____________water use.


[Q]: To describe your location wherever you are on Earths surface, you could use a coordinate system. For example, you could say that you are at 1234 Main Street, Springfield, Ohio. Or you could use a point of reference. If you want to meet up with a friend, you could tell him the distance and direction you are from the reference point. An example is, I am at the corner of Maple Street and Main Street, about two blocks north of your apartment. When studying Earths surface, scientists must be able to pinpoint a feature they are interested in. Scientists and others have a system to describe the location of any feature. Usually they use latitude and longitude as a coordinate system. Lines of latitude and longitude form a grid. The grid is centered on a reference point. You will learn about this type of grid when we discuss maps later in this chapter. When an object is moving, it is not enough to describe its location. We also need to know direction. Direction is important for describing moving objects. For example, a wind blows a storm over your school. Where is that storm coming from? Where is it going? The most common way to describe direction is by using a compass. A compass is a device with a floating needle (Figure 2.1). The needle is a small magnet that aligns itself with the Earths magnetic field. The compass needle always points to magnetic north. If you have a compass and you find north, you can then know any other direction. See the directions, such as east, south, west, etc., on a compass rose. A compass needle lines up with Earths magnetic north pole. This is different from Earths geographic north pole, or true north. The geographic north pole is the top of the imaginary axis around which Earth rotates. The geographic north pole is much like the spindle of a spinning top. The location of the geographic north pole does not change. However, the magnetic north pole shifts in location over time. Depending on where you live, you can correct for the difference between the two poles when you use a map and a compass (Figure 2.2). Some maps have a double compass rose. This allows users to make the corrections between magnetic north and true north. An example is a nautical chart that boaters use to chart their positions at sea (Figure 2.3). As you know, the surface of Earth is not flat. Some places are high and some places are low. For example, mountain ranges like the Sierra Nevada in California or the Andes in South America are high above the surrounding areas. We can describe the topography of a region by measuring the height or depth of that feature relative to sea level (Figure mountains, while others are more like small hills! Relief, or terrain, includes all the landforms of a region. A topographic map shows the height, or elevation, of features in an area. This includes mountains, craters, valleys, and rivers. For example, Figure 2.5 shows the San Francisco Peaks in northern Arizona. Features on the map include mountains, hills and lava flows. You can recognize these features from the differences in elevation. We will talk about some different landforms in the next section. If you take away the water in the oceans (Figure 2.6), Earth looks really different. You see that the surface has two main features: continents and ocean basins. Continents are large land areas. Ocean basins extend from the edges of continents to the ocean floor and into deep trenches. Continents are much older than ocean basins. Some rocks on the continents are billions of years old. Ocean basins are only millions of years old at their oldest. Because the continents are so old, a lot has happened to them! As we view the land around us we see landforms. Landforms are physical features on Earths surface. Landforms are introduced in this section but will be discussed more in later chapters. Constructive forces cause landforms to grow. Lava flowing into the ocean can build land outward. A volcano can be a constructive force. Destructive forces may blow landforms
[A]:
relief over a given region