Acid Rain

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Acid Rain

Acid rain is polluted rain. The pollutants go up to the atmosphere and when it rains it brings the pollution down with it. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide are the gases that form the acid rain. When these gases mix with moisture it can make rain, snow, hail, or even fog. The scientific term for acid rain is acid deposition which means when the acid is taken from the air and is deposited on the earth. Major industries, coal burning factories, power plants and automoble engines are the main sources of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide which caues acid rain. Volcaneoes and forest fires also causes sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. Some of the many problems that come from acid rain is the killing of of many plants and underwater life in thousands of lakes and streams around the world. It strips forest soils of nutrients and damages farm crops.
Acid rain can also corrode stone buildings, bridges, and priceless monuments.
Acid rain can also be harmful to humans because acid rain kills the crops and fish we eat, ruins homes, and the acid can release lead in the pipes and the lead could go into our drinking water. It is hard to determine where acid rain may fall next, because the wind from a pollueted area could carry pollution to another area and the acid rain could fall there. The regions effected more by acid rain is large parts of eastern North America, Scandinavia, and central
Europe. In alot of places acid rain isn't a probelm because some soils can neutralize the acid and it doesn't effect the crops. Areas more sensitive to acid rain is in the western United States most of Washington all of Oregon, sectons of California and most of Idaho. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and a large section of north east Canada. The soil in these places can not neutralize acid rain deposits, then the nutrients are stripped which means the crops in those places may not survive. The Black forest is a mountainous region in
Baden-Wurttemberg, in southwestern Germany. The valleys are fertile and make good pasture land as well as providing good soil vineyards. No forest region is showing serious effects of acid rain. Many trees are dying, the forest lost masses of needles, leaving them with sparse, scruffing crowns. Their major industries are Lumbering wood, manufacturing toys and cuckoo clocks. Winter sports and mineral springs attract tourists.
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...sols are only slightly developed. Mollisols develop in praire regions.
They have thick organically rich topsoils. Oxisols are the most chemically weathered soils. They have a reddish color and occure in the tropical parts of the world. Spodosols contains iron, aluminum, and organic matter in there B horizons. They form in humid climates. They are moist, well-developed, acid soils. Vertisols form in subhumid and arid warm climates. They make wide, deep cracks during the dry season.
Other soil groups are the tundra, podzol, chernozem. Tundra soils have dark brown surfaces and darker subsoils than in arctic regions that are underlain by permafrost. The soils can be farmed if they are well drained and permafrost is absent or deep-lying. Podzol soils are moderately to strongly leached soils in forests and in humid regions. They are not naturally very productive for agriculture. Chernozem soils (from Russian for "black earth") have a dark surface layer underlain by more lightly colored soil. They typically develop under grasses while the temperate is cool. Subhumid climates are highly productive, although they require fertilizers after a long use.

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