What is the difference between surface water and ground water?

 

Lakes, rivers, reservoirs, streams, swamps and any other natural storage basin contain surface water. These areas are all open to the sky and accessible to rainfall. Not all surface water areas are natural, of course, as there are many man-made lakes and reservoirs. Rain, melting glaciers and underground water are all sources of refreshment for surface water bodies.

Ground water on the other hand is that fresh water (from rain, melting snow or ice) which soaks into the soil. This water first enters a layer of earth containing air and water surrounding rock fragments or soil particles. This particular area is called the zone of aeration. The water gradually replaces the air, as it seeps through the soil, until the soil is finally saturated. The top of this saturated zone is known as the water table. At the bottom of the zone, very often is bedrock which can be 10 miles below the surface. As the ground water moves through the saturated zone, it replenishes dry or low-water volume cavities in the ground which must have plenty of water if they are to keep lakes and wells supplied.

Sometimes vegetation draws water from the saturated zone upwards to its roots. Too, the water can become trapped deep within the bowels of the earth and remain in natural underground reservoirs for many years. Underground water is not limited to regions of the earth with high precipitation. Deserts, plains, many arid sections of the world, as well as mountains, rivers, cities, have a great deal of underground water. There is even underground water beneath the oceans. If the water table in a certain region is at a ground level, then what will occur? A swamp, of course, for the soil is saturated at the point. If the table happens to be above the land’s surface, then natural lakes or ponds are formed.

 

1. Where is the fresh water accumulated?

2. What natural water basins contain surface water?

3. What sources of replenishment for surface water do you know?

4. Is there any underground water beneath the ocean?

5. Under what conditions will a swamp occur?

 

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Read the text and decide which answer A, B, C, D or E best fits each space. Translate the text into Russian.

 

Energy

 

_1_ to do work is called energy, and when the energy is due to motion it is _2_ kinetic energy. A weight which has been lifted from the floor to the top of the table _3_ work on it; if we allow the weight to fall back again to the floor it will _4_ velocity, and therefore kinetic energy. This energy was simply “stored up” in the weight when it was at rest on the table: it had energy _5_ its position on the table; and we call this energy potential. Or, potential energy is the energy of a mass due to its position. Water, at the _6_ of the waterwheel, has potential energy. As it falls it gradually loses this potential energy, but gets kinetic energy at the _7_ time.

 

1. A. Capacitor D. Capacities

B. Capacity E.Incapacitant

C. Capacitance

2. A. calling D. called

B. caller E.calls

C. uncalled

3. A. will have D. will be having

B. had had E.has had

C. was having

4. A. do D. get

B. put E.take

C. give

5. A. because D. owing

B. on account E.as a result

C. due to

6. A. side D. top

B. bottom E.base

C. center

7. A. next D. past

B. same E.latest

C. other

 

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Read the text and answer the questions.

 

Channel Tunnel

 

Before you read the text, try to match the figures given in the list below with the questions:

 

50; 15,000; 220; 10bn; 575; 1,200; 10; 45

 

1. What was the total cost of the project? (… pounds)

2. How many workers died during the project?

3. How deep is the tunnel below the sea-bed?

4. How many companies supplied equipment?

5. How long is the total amount of railway track in the tunnel? (… kilometers)

6. How long is the tunnel? (… kilometers)

7. How heavy were the drilling machines? (… tons)

8. How many workers built it?

 

Now read the article and check the answers.

 

The Channel Tunnel is also called Eurotunnel, rail tunnel between England and France that runs beneath the English Channel. The Channel Tunnel, consists of three tunnels, each 50 km long: two for rail traffic and a central tunnel for services and security. It is the second longest tunnel in the world. The longest is the Seikan tunnel in Japan, but the Channel Tunnel has a longer under-sea section. The tunnel runs between Folkestone, England, and Sangatte (near Calais), France, and is used for both freight and passenger traffic. Passengers can travel either by ordinary rail coach or within their own motor vehicles, which are loaded onto special rail cars. Trains can travel through the tunnel at speeds as high as 160 km per hour; the trip takes about 35 minutes. The often-considered idea of constructing a tunnel under the English Channel was revived in 1986 by Great Britain and France. A rail tunnel was chosen over proposals for a very long suspension bridge, a bridge-and-tunnel link, and a combined rail-and-road link, and the project was privately financed by a consortium of British and French corporations and banks; the Anglo-French company operating the tunnel is called Eurotunnel. Fifteen thousand workers built it and 1,200 companies supplied equipment. It cost ten billion pounds to build.

One team began drilling in France and the other in England. The biggest problem for the builders was ensuring that the tunnels met at exactly the same place under the sea in the middle of the channel. The drilling machines were the heaviest ever made, each weighing up to 575 tons. In the opinion of Roger Dobson, Director General of the Institute of Civil Engineers, ‘The Channel Tunnel is the greatest engineering project ever accomplished.’ The tunnel itself is an average of 45m below the sea-bed and has 220 km of railway track. It has the most sophisticated railway control system in the world.

The tunnel was officially opened in May 1994.

 

* * *

Read the text and answer the questions.

 

Development in trade and industry

 

Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, London, on 1 May 1851. Two thousand workmen had been employed to build a “Crystal Palace”, made of glass and iron, and designed by Joseph Paxton, to show the “Works and Industry of All Nations”. Among the things on display were railway engines, steam ploughs, cranes, ships’ engines, printing machines, clocks, pumps, furniture and hundreds of tools, implements and gadgets of all kinds from several countries. The Exhibition, however, was mainly a show-piece for British products and achievements, proving that it was the “Workshop of the World”. It was an enormous success.

Britain kept ahead of all other countries in trade and industry during the second half of the nineteenth century. It was the first to benefit from foreign trade because it had successfully colonized India, Canada, Australia and large parts of Africa. British goods were in great demand in many countries. Cotton, woolen, linen and silk fabrics, hardware and leather were exported and these were followed later by iron, steel, coal, railway stock and ships. At the same time, there were large imports of raw cotton, timber, tin, jute and, especially, food. By the end of the 19^th century Britain could feed its population on home produced food for only five days a week, so the rest had to be imported.

Shipyards and ports flourished. Half the world’s shipping was British built and the three greatest ports of the world at that time were London, Liverpool and Glasgow. The British navy controlled the sea routes, and ships made much faster voyages as the steamship displaced the sailing vessels. First came the steam paddle ship, then the screw ship, and, afterwards, in 1897, the steam turbine invented by Sir Charles Parsons. By 1913 almost all British ship-owners had turned to steam.

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 shortened the voyage from Britain to Australia by nearly 2000 km and to India by almost 6500 km. On 24 August 1892, the first Shell oil tanker, the “Murex” of 4000 tones, went through the canal but today the largest tankers are too big to use it and have to sail round the Cape of Good Hope. The Panama Canal opened in 1914, shortened the route between British ports and those on the western seaboard of the USA and Canada by about 10000 km. Considerable saving was made in the fuel costs of shipping, as well as time, with the cutting of the canals.

Railways had caused a revolution in land transport but they were superseded when the petrol-driven engines were invented at the beginning of the 20^th century. Not only did the motorcars speed up transport and trade with door-to-door service but they began a new kind of factory system – mass production. Henry Ford, in America, manufactured his famous “Model T” car in 1909 by mass, or assembly-line, production to provide “motoring for the millions”. With “line” production, the work moves from worker to worker, with each man doing his own special job on it throughout his working hours. The “line”, or conveyor, is rather like a moving work-bench and the product is virtually complete and ready for the sales department when it reaches the end of its factory journey. British motor manufacturers followed the American lead and used mass-production methods where possible. To be profitable however, mass-production can only be applied where there is a great demand for the products, all of which have to be exactly alike. The British Rolls-Royce car, for instance, is not mass-produced and so only the rich can afford to buy it.

Increase in air travel caused a big decline in passenger shipping which is so much slower, although large, bulky cargo still has to go by sea. Many ships, which at one time were in passenger service, have been converted into cruise ships for package holidays. it is sad but true that hardly any large passenger ships are being built anywhere in the world today. The investment is in supersonic air-liners like the Anglo-French Concorde.

The demand for man-made fibres such as Acrilan, Orlon, Terylene, Trevira and Bri-Nylon, along with foreign competition, have resulted in the closure of many cotton and woolen mills in Britain. Some mills are using the new fibres but others had come too out-of-date to make the changes profitable. In a similar way, iron and steel manufacture has slumped because of the increase in the use of aluminium and plastics.

Coal and gas industries have declined because of the increased consumption of oil and electricity, which are easier and cleaner to convey and use. Natural gas was discovered under the North Sea in 1965 and almost all Britain’s gas supply is expected to come from these fields by 1980. similarly, oil began to be extracted in 1975 from fields under the seas surrounding Britain. Electricity consumption has been doubling every ten years and nuclear power stations have been meeting much of this demand since 1956.

The 20^th century has seen the rise of the “multi-national” companies. Small firms and family business have found it very difficult to remain independent of, or in competition with, the large companies and many have been “taken over” or have had to closes down altogether. Huge organizations such as ICI, Unilever, Ford, Tate and Lyle, Shell and Imperial Tobacco are trading all over the world.

Today’s new factories are quite different from the old ones, both in appearance and lay-out. They are not like the grim, prison like buildings of the first industrial revolution but are light, airy and often sited in semi-rural areas. Their products serve today’s demand for processed foods, medicines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, cameras, sewing machines, radio and television sets, tape recorders and, of course, motor cars. Some developments in industry are causing problems at the same time as they are solving others. Automation, when a product is taken through various stages automatically, and computers, machines which do highly complicated calculations in a few seconds, have put many people out of work. New factories set up in India and in African and South American countries are supplying their own peoples with goods which at one time they used to buy from Britain.

Unemployment is a matter of great concern in the industrialized countries of the world. Some factories work a five, or even a four day week and employees are encouraged to retire early. Whether we like it or not, it seems that we shall all be having more leisure time in the future. If we use it well, we may be all the better for it.

 

1. Who designed the “Crystal Palace” of 1851?

2. What sort of things did the Great Exhibition display?

3. Which ports were the greatest in the world in the 19^th century?

4. When was the Suez Canal opened?

5. Who invented the steam turbine engine?

6. Which oceans are linked by the Panama Canal?

7. Who first started “assembly-line” production in factories?

8. What was the “Model T”?

9. What is a supersonic air-liner?

10. When was natural gas discovered under the North Sea?

11. Make a list of “man-made” fibres.

12. What kind of machine is a computer?

 

* * *

Read the text and answer the questions.

 

Geology

 

Read the first paragraph, translate it. Open the brackets and put the verbs into the correct form.

 

Geology (1) (to be) the science which deals with the earth’s constitution and structure, with the various stages which it (2) (to pass), with the living things, with the agencies and processes which are altering it, and with the utilization of the earth’s materials by man. Geology includes the study of rocks and their relation to each other; the study of the atmosphere, its movements and its reactions with the mineral constituents of rocks. A geologist is called upon not only to classify minerals and rocks but to locate valuable mineral deposits and to direct their exploration and to give advice regarding dam sites, tunnels, irrigation systems, control of floods and other engineering projects.

The earth (3) (to change) continually. Some changes are great and rapid while others are small and slow although they are nevertheless effective. The geologist seeks to analyse the changes and the processes that cause them. He assumes that these processes have been operative during the past as well as in the present, although perhaps with different intensifies, and he seeks to explain the present earth as the result of processes which (4) (to act) through long ages of time. Thus the present, which is the outgrowth of the past, is also the key to the history of the past.

 

Discuss the following questions:

 

1. What does geology deal with?

2. What are the duties of a geologist?

3. Do the processes altering the earth differ or are they the same?

 

Read the rest of the text, translate it. Open the brackets and put the verbs into the correct form.

Geology may (5) (to divide) into physical geology and historical geology. Physical geology (6) (to deal) with materials of the earth, earth-crust movements, the structure of the earth, and the processes and agencies by which the earth has been for many millions of years modified and (7) (to modify) now, including such agencies as weather, wind, streams, glaciers, seas, organisms, volcanoes, subterranean waters, and lakes. Historical geology deals with the records of the successive events of the earth’s history, and with the history and evolutionary changes of the organisms which have lived upon the earth.

The science of geology commonly is divided into several branches, each of which emphasizes certain phases of the subject. Cosmology deals with the early history of the earth and the relations of the earth to other heavenly bodies in the universe such as the sun, the other planets and the other stars. Petrology treats of the rocks of the earth. Structural geology deals with the arrangements or the structural relations of rocks. Dynamic geology treats of the forces and the movements that have affected the rocks and the results of these movements. All of these branches (8) (to relate) closely to each other and form part of the general subject of geology.

Geology shows us that the earth (9) (to go) through vast changes in its geography, its inhabitants and its physical condition; and that the history is not ended yet but (10) (to write) at present day.

 

Discuss the following questions:

1. What branches can geology be divided into? What do you know about them?

2. Why is geology a significant science?

 

* * *

Read the text. The following sentences have been removed from the text. Read it again and decide in which numbered gap each sentence should go. There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.

 

A. The nature and extent of environmental problems arising from the mining industry are very wide.

B. In these cases the water can be retained in a closed circuit and no pollution results.

C. To sum it up it should be stressed that the nature and extent of the environmental problems are very wide.

D. Air pollution can cause damage, the extent of which depends upon their composition and concentration.

E. There is no evidence of a serious decline of the forest.

F. A common practice of mining is to plan blasting at times of the day when it will be least noticeable.

 

Range of Environmental Problems

 

Lime (n) – известь

Limestone (n) – известняк

Crusher (n) – дробилка

Bearing (n) – подшипник

Pollute (v) – загрязнять

Circuit (n) [‘sз:kit] – цикл, система

An impact = influence – сильное воз-действие, влияние

Treatment (n) – обработка

Liquid (adj) – жидкий, текучий, жидкость

Blasting – взрывные (подрывные) работы

Subsidence [s∂b‘said(∂)ns] – оседание (почвы)

Contaminate (v) – загрязнять, портить, отравлять

Mining – горное дело, горные разработки, добыча полезных ископаемых

Revegetation (n) – рекультивация, восстановление растительного покрова

Effluent (n) – сброс, сток, промышленные отходы

 

The aspects of mining may cause pollution of different nature. __1__ .Dust from mining operations may become a serious problem especially in areas of dry climate. Mine site dust control requires a good knowledge of wind conditions. Where dust is a serious problem it is necessary to use more intensive methods of control. Physical stabilization especially revegetation is more economical than chemical treatment.

The wide range of liquid effluents from mining can pollute sources of water. The most important water pollution problem is the drainage of mine acid into the adjacent lakes and rivers. The most popular technique of treating mine acid pollution is lime and limestone neutralization. In mining water is mainly used for cooling equipment such as crusher bearings, pumps and compressors. __2__. Ground water may become contaminated with acids, heavy metals and other toxic substances. In stating these impacts it should be kept in mind that the causes are very difficult to establish. This is due to the very complex nature of surface and ground hydrology.

Noise is the most commonly noticed environmental impact of mining. Noise cannot be eliminated but it can be reduced. Noise from blasting is also a problem. __3__. Ground vibrations are a more difficult problem to overcome. Noise reduction equipment is constantly being improved. Making use of up-to-date noise reduction equipment and keeping it in good repair will reduce the noise effect of mining.

__4__. For example, in those cases where underground mining is required, surface subsidence can have a serious impact on the land.

__5__. The most important thing to be done is to take measures for environmental protection and to use nature with care.

 

I. Answer the questions choosing the correct variant. Use information from the text.

 

1. What may cause pollution?

a) the aspects of mining c) storage bins

b) noise reduction equipment d) heavy metal

2. What does the extent of air pollution depend on?

a) on landscape c) on make-up and concentration

b) on surface damage d) on temperature

3. It is necessary to know wind conditions to reduce

a) water pollution c) air pollution

b) noise d) marine pollution

4. Sources of water can be polluted by

a) carbon monoxide c) hydrogen

b) mine acid d) nitrogen

5. With the help of lime they

a) treat air pollution c) treat acid pollution

b) treat flu d) treat noise pollution

6. They cool equipment with

a) cool air c) lime

b) liquid d) acid

7. The causes of ground water pollution are

a) always evident c) easy to establish

b) difficult to determine d) never clear

8. What kind of pollution can not be removed but only reduced?

a) air pollution c) noise

b) water pollution d) marine pollution

9. What can reduce the noise effect of mining?

a) modern equipment c) drilling mud

b) storage bin d) out-of-date equipment

10. The environmental problems arising from the mining industry are

a) unimportant c) interesting

b) varied d) boring

II. Find in the text sentences with modal verbs and their equivalents translate them.

 

III. Find in the text sentences with non-finite forms of the verbs and translate them.

 

IV. Find in the text the passage describing the primary area of use of water in the mining industry. Read this passage aloud (approximate time of reading is 15 seconds).

 

V. Find in the text key words that you can use to speak about environmental problems that arise from the mining industry. Copy them out into your exercise-books. Read them aloud.

* * *

Read the text and translate it.