Groundwater
Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water; the depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock become saturated with water is called the water table. Groundwater is recharged from and flows to the surface naturally. Groundwater is often withdrawn for agricultural and industrial use by constructing and operating extraction wells; the study of the distribution and movement of groundwater is hydrogeology called groundwater hydrology. Groundwater is thought of as water flowing through shallow aquifers, but, in the technical sense, it can contain soil moisture, immobile water in low permeability bedrock, deep geothermal or oil formation water. Groundwater is hypothesized to provide lubrication that can influence the movement of faults, it is that much of Earth's subsurface contains some water, which may be mixed with other fluids in some instances.
Groundwater may not be confined only to Earth. The formation of some of the landforms observed on Mars may have been influenced by groundwater. There is evidence that liquid water may exist in the subsurface of Jupiter's moon Europa. Groundwater is cheaper, more convenient and less vulnerable to pollution than surface water. Therefore, it is used for public water supplies. For example, groundwater provides the largest source of usable water storage in the United States, California annually withdraws the largest amount of groundwater of all the states. Underground reservoirs contain far more water than the capacity of all surface reservoirs and lakes in the US, including the Great Lakes. Many municipal water supplies are derived from groundwater. Polluted groundwater is less visible and more difficult to clean up than pollution in rivers and lakes. Groundwater pollution most results from improper disposal of wastes on land. Major sources include industrial and household chemicals and garbage landfills, excessive fertilizers and pesticides used in agriculture, industrial waste lagoons and process wastewater from mines, industrial fracking, oil field brine pits, leaking underground oil storage tanks and pipelines, sewage sludge and septic systems.
An aquifer is a layer of porous substrate that transmits groundwater. When water can flow directly between the surface and the saturated zone of an aquifer, the aquifer is unconfined; the deeper parts of unconfined aquifers are more saturated since gravity causes water to flow downward. The upper level of this saturated layer of an unconfined aquifer is called the water table or phreatic surface. Below the water table, where in general all pore spaces are saturated with water, is the phreatic zone. Substrate with low porosity that permits limited transmission of groundwater is known as an aquitard. An aquiclude is a substrate with porosity, so low it is impermeable to groundwater. A confined aquifer is an aquifer, overlain by a impermeable layer of rock or substrate such as an aquiclude or aquitard. If a confined aquifer follows a downward grade from its recharge zone, groundwater can become pressurized as it flows; this can create artesian wells that flow without the need of a pump and rise to a higher elevation than the static water table at the above, aquifer.
The characteristics of aquifers vary with the geology and structure of the substrate and topography in which they occur. In general, the more productive aquifers occur in sedimentary geologic formations. By comparison and fractured crystalline rocks yield smaller quantities of groundwater in many environments. Unconsolidated to poorly cemented alluvial materials that have accumulated as valley-filling sediments in major river valleys and geologically subsiding structural basins are included among the most productive sources of groundwater; the high specific heat capacity of water and the insulating effect of soil and rock can mitigate the effects of climate and maintain groundwater at a steady temperature. In some places where groundwater temperatures are maintained by this effect at about 10 °C, groundwater can be used for controlling the temperature inside structures at the surface. For example, during hot weather cool groundwater can be pumped through radiators in a home and returned to the ground in another well.
During cold seasons, because it is warm, the water can be used in the same way as a source of heat for heat pumps, much more efficient than using air. The volume of groundwater in an aquifer can be estimated by measuring water levels in local wells and by examining geologic records from well-drilling to determine the extent and thickness of water-bearing sediments and rocks. Before an investment is made in production wells, test wells may be drilled to measure the depths at which water is encountered and collect samples of soils and water for laboratory analyses. Pumping tests can be performed in test wells to determine flow characteristics of the aquifer. Groundwater makes up about twenty percent of the world's fresh water supply, about 0.61% of the entire world's water, including oceans and permanent ice. Global groundwater storage is equal to the total amount of freshwater stored in the snow and ice pack, including the north and south poles; this makes it an important resource that can act as a natural storage that can buffer against shortages of surface water, as in during times of drought.
Groundwater is replenished b
Water
Water is a transparent, tasteless and nearly colorless chemical substance, the main constituent of Earth's streams and oceans, the fluids of most living organisms. It is vital for all known forms of life though it provides no calories or organic nutrients, its chemical formula is H2O, meaning that each of its molecules contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms, connected by covalent bonds. Water is the name of the liquid state of H2O at standard ambient pressure, it forms precipitation in the form of rain and aerosols in the form of fog. Clouds are formed from suspended droplets of its solid state; when finely divided, crystalline ice may precipitate in the form of snow. The gaseous state of water is water vapor. Water moves continually through the water cycle of evaporation, condensation and runoff reaching the sea. Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface in seas and oceans. Small portions of water occur as groundwater, in the glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland, in the air as vapor and precipitation.
Water plays an important role in the world economy. 70% of the freshwater used by humans goes to agriculture. Fishing in salt and fresh water bodies is a major source of food for many parts of the world. Much of long-distance trade of commodities and manufactured products is transported by boats through seas, rivers and canals. Large quantities of water and steam are used for cooling and heating, in industry and homes. Water is an excellent solvent for a wide variety of chemical substances. Water is central to many sports and other forms of entertainment, such as swimming, pleasure boating, boat racing, sport fishing, diving; the word water comes from Old English wæter, from Proto-Germanic *watar, from Proto-Indo-European *wod-or, suffixed form of root *wed-. Cognate, through the Indo-European root, with Greek ύδωρ, Russian вода́, Irish uisce, Albanian ujë; the identification of water as a substance Water is a polar inorganic compound, at room temperature a tasteless and odorless liquid, nearly colorless with a hint of blue.
This simplest hydrogen chalcogenide is by far the most studied chemical compound and is described as the "universal solvent" for its ability to dissolve many substances. This allows it to be the "solvent of life", it is the only common substance to exist as a solid and gas in normal terrestrial conditions. Water is a liquid at the pressures that are most adequate for life. At a standard pressure of 1 atm, water is a liquid between 0 and 100 °C. Increasing the pressure lowers the melting point, about −5 °C at 600 atm and −22 °C at 2100 atm; this effect is relevant, for example, to ice skating, to the buried lakes of Antarctica, to the movement of glaciers. Increasing the pressure has a more dramatic effect on the boiling point, about 374 °C at 220 atm; this effect is important in, among other things, deep-sea hydrothermal vents and geysers, pressure cooking, steam engine design. At the top of Mount Everest, where the atmospheric pressure is about 0.34 atm, water boils at 68 °C. At low pressures, water cannot exist in the liquid state and passes directly from solid to gas by sublimation—a phenomenon exploited in the freeze drying of food.
At high pressures, the liquid and gas states are no longer distinguishable, a state called supercritical steam. Water differs from most liquids in that it becomes less dense as it freezes; the maximum density of water in its liquid form is 1,000 kg/m3. The density of ice is 917 kg/m3. Thus, water expands 9% in volume as it freezes, which accounts for the fact that ice floats on liquid water; the details of the exact chemical nature of liquid water are not well understood. Pure water is described as tasteless and odorless, although humans have specific sensors that can feel the presence of water in their mouths, frogs are known to be able to smell it. However, water from ordinary sources has many dissolved substances, that may give it varying tastes and odors. Humans and other animals have developed senses that enable them to evaluate the potability of water by avoiding water, too salty or putrid; the apparent color of natural bodies of water is determined more by dissolved and suspended solids, or by reflection of the sky, than by water itself.
Light in the visible electromagnetic spectrum can traverse a couple meters of pure water without significant absorption, so that it looks transparent and colorless. Thus aquatic plants and other photosynthetic organisms can live in water up to hundreds of meters deep, because sunlight can reach them. Water vapour is invisible as a gas. Through a thickness of 10 meters or more, the intrinsic color of water is visibly turquoise, as its absorption spectrum has
Planetary surface
A planetary surface is where the solid material of the outer crust on certain types of astronomical objects contacts the atmosphere or outer space. Planetary surfaces are found on solid objects of planetary mass, including terrestrial planets, dwarf planets, natural satellites and many other small Solar System bodies; the study of planetary surfaces is a field of planetary geology known as surface geology, but a focus of a number of fields including planetary cartography, geomorphology, atmospheric sciences, astronomy. Land is the term given to non-liquid planetary surfaces; the term landing is used to describe the collision of an object with a planetary surface and is at a velocity in which the object can remain intact and remain attached. In differentiated bodies, the surface is. Anything below this is regarded as being sub-marine. Most bodies more massive than super-Earths, including stars and gas giants, as well as smaller gas dwarfs, transition contiguously between phases, including gas and solid.
As such, they are regarded as lacking surfaces. Planetary surfaces and surface life are of particular interest to humans as it the primary habitat of the species, which has evolved to move over land and breathe air. Human space exploration and space colonization therefore focuses on them. Humans have only directly explored the surface of the Moon; the vast distances and complexities of space makes direct exploration of near-Earth objects dangerous and expensive. As such, all other exploration has been indirect via space probes. Indirect observations by flyby or orbit provide insufficient information to confirm the composition and properties of planetary surfaces. Much of what is known is from the use of techniques such as astronomical spectroscopy and sample return. Lander spacecraft have explored the surfaces of planets Venus. Mars is the only other planet to have had its surface explored by a mobile surface probe. Titan is the only non-planetary object of planetary mass to have been explored by lander.
Landers have explored several smaller bodies including 433 Eros, 25143 Itokawa, Tempel 1, 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Planetary surfaces are found throughout the Solar System, from the inner terrestrial planets, to the asteroid belt, the natural satellites of the gas giant planets and beyond to the Trans-Neptunian objects. Surface conditions and terrain vary due to a number of factors including Albedo generated by the surfaces itself. Measures of surface conditions include surface area, surface gravity, surface temperature and surface pressure. Surface stability may be affected by erosion through Aeolian processes, subduction, sediment or seismic activity; some surfaces are dynamic. Distance, atmospheric conditions and unknown factors make exploration is both costly and risky; this necessitates the space probes for early exploration of planetary surfaces. Many probes are stationary have a limited study range and survive on extraterrestrial surfaces for a short period, however mobile probes have surveyed larger surface areas.
Sample return missions allow scientist to study extraterrestrial surface materials on Earth without having to send a manned mission, however is only feasible for objects with low gravity and atmosphere. The first extraterrestrial planetary surface to be explored was the lunar surface by Luna 2 in 1959; the first and only human exploration of an extraterrestrial surface was the Moon, the Apollo program included the first moonwalk on July 20, 1969 and successful return of extraterrestrial surface samples to Earth. Venera 7 was the first landing of a probe on another planet on December 15, 1970. Mars 3 "soft landed" and returned data from Mars on August 22, 1972, the first rover on Mars was Mars Pathfinder in 1997, the Mars Exploration Rover has been studying the surface of the red planet since 2004. NEAR Shoemaker was the first to soft land on an asteroid – 433 Eros in February 2001 while Hayabusa was the first to return samples from 25143 Itokawa on 13 June 2010. Huygens soft landed and returned data from Titan on January 14, 2005.
There have been many failed attempts, more Fobos-Grunt, a sample return mission aimed at exploring the surface of Phobos. In May 2011, NASA announced the OSIRIS-REx sample return mission to asteroid 1999 RQ36, is expected to launch in 2016. Other landing and sample return targets include 101955 Bennu; the most common planetary surface material in the Solar System appears to be water ice. Surface ice is more abundant beyond Mars. Other surfaces include solid matter in combinations of rock and frozen chemical elements and chemical compounds. In general, ice predominates planetary surfaces beyond the frost line, while closer to the sun and regolith predominate. Minerals and hydrates may be present in smaller quantities on many planetary surfaces. Surface liquid, while abundant on Earth is rare elsewhere, a notable exception being Titan which has the largest known hydrocarbon lake system while surface water, abundant on Earth and essential to all known forms of life is thought only to exist as Seasonal flows on warm Martian slopes and in the habitable zones of other planetary systems.
Volcanism can cause flows such as lava on the surface of geologically active bodies (the largest being the Amir
Natural satellite
A natural satellite or moon is, in the most common usage, an astronomical body that orbits a planet or minor planet. In the Solar System there are six planetary satellite systems containing 185 known natural satellites. Four IAU-listed dwarf planets are known to have natural satellites: Pluto, Haumea and Eris; as of September 2018, there are 334 other minor planets known to have moons. The Earth–Moon system is unique in that the ratio of the mass of the Moon to the mass of Earth is much greater than that of any other natural-satellite–planet ratio in the Solar System. At 3,474 km across, the Moon is 0.27 times the diameter of Earth. The first known natural satellite was the Moon, but it was considered a "planet" until Copernicus' introduction of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543; until the discovery of the Galilean satellites in 1610, there was no opportunity for referring to such objects as a class. Galileo chose to refer to his discoveries as Planetæ, but discoverers chose other terms to distinguish them from the objects they orbited.
The first to use of the term satellite to describe orbiting bodies was the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in his pamphlet Narratio de Observatis a se quatuor Iouis satellitibus erronibus in 1610. He derived the term from the Latin word satelles, meaning "guard", "attendant", or "companion", because the satellites accompanied their primary planet in their journey through the heavens; the term satellite thus became the normal one for referring to an object orbiting a planet, as it avoided the ambiguity of "moon". In 1957, the launching of the artificial object Sputnik created a need for new terminology. Sputnik was created by Soviet Union, it was the first satellite ever; the terms man-made satellite and artificial moon were quickly abandoned in favor of the simpler satellite, as a consequence, the term has become linked with artificial objects flown in space – including, sometimes those not in orbit around a planet. Because of this shift in meaning, the term moon, which had continued to be used in a generic sense in works of popular science and in fiction, has regained respectability and is now used interchangeably with natural satellite in scientific articles.
When it is necessary to avoid both the ambiguity of confusion with Earth's natural satellite the Moon and the natural satellites of the other planets on the one hand, artificial satellites on the other, the term natural satellite is used. To further avoid ambiguity, the convention is to capitalize the word Moon when referring to Earth's natural satellite, but not when referring to other natural satellites. Many authors define "satellite" or "natural satellite" as orbiting some planet or minor planet, synonymous with "moon" – by such a definition all natural satellites are moons, but Earth and other planets are not satellites. A few recent authors define "moon" as "a satellite of a planet or minor planet", "planet" as "a satellite of a star" – such authors consider Earth as a "natural satellite of the sun". There is no established lower limit on what is considered a "moon"; every natural celestial body with an identified orbit around a planet of the Solar System, some as small as a kilometer across, has been considered a moon, though objects a tenth that size within Saturn's rings, which have not been directly observed, have been called moonlets.
Small asteroid moons, such as Dactyl, have been called moonlets. The upper limit is vague. Two orbiting bodies are sometimes described as a double planet rather than satellite. Asteroids such as 90 Antiope are considered double asteroids, but they have not forced a clear definition of what constitutes a moon; some authors consider the Pluto–Charon system to be a double planet. The most common dividing line on what is considered a moon rests upon whether the barycentre is below the surface of the larger body, though this is somewhat arbitrary, because it depends on distance as well as relative mass; the natural satellites orbiting close to the planet on prograde, uninclined circular orbits are thought to have been formed out of the same collapsing region of the protoplanetary disk that created its primary. In contrast, irregular satellites are thought to be captured asteroids further fragmented by collisions. Most of the major natural satellites of the Solar System have regular orbits, while most of the small natural satellites have irregular orbits.
The Moon and Charon are exceptions among large bodies in that they are thought to have originated by the collision of two large proto-planetary objects. The material that would have been placed in orbit around the central body is predicted to have reaccreted to form one or more orbiting natural satellites; as opposed to planetary-sized bodies, asteroid moons are thought to form by this process. Triton is another exception; the capture of an asteroid from a heliocentric orbit is not always permanent. According to simulations, temporary satellites should be a common phenomenon; the only observed example is 2006 RH120, a temporary satellite of Earth for nine months in 2006 and 2007. Most regular moons (natural satellites following close and prograde orbits with small orb
Atmosphere of Earth
The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases known as air, that surrounds the planet Earth and is retained by Earth's gravity. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for liquid water to exist on the Earth's surface, absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention, reducing temperature extremes between day and night. By volume, dry air contains 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, small amounts of other gases. Air contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1% at sea level, 0.4% over the entire atmosphere. Air content and atmospheric pressure vary at different layers, air suitable for use in photosynthesis by terrestrial plants and breathing of terrestrial animals is found only in Earth's troposphere and in artificial atmospheres; the atmosphere has a mass of about 5.15×1018 kg, three quarters of, within about 11 km of the surface. The atmosphere becomes thinner and thinner with increasing altitude, with no definite boundary between the atmosphere and outer space.
The Kármán line, at 100 km, or 1.57% of Earth's radius, is used as the border between the atmosphere and outer space. Atmospheric effects become noticeable during atmospheric reentry of spacecraft at an altitude of around 120 km. Several layers can be distinguished in the atmosphere, based on characteristics such as temperature and composition; the study of Earth's atmosphere and its processes is called atmospheric science. Early pioneers in the field include Richard Assmann; the three major constituents of Earth's atmosphere are nitrogen and argon. Water vapor accounts for 0.25% of the atmosphere by mass. The concentration of water vapor varies from around 10 ppm by volume in the coldest portions of the atmosphere to as much as 5% by volume in hot, humid air masses, concentrations of other atmospheric gases are quoted in terms of dry air; the remaining gases are referred to as trace gases, among which are the greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, ozone. Filtered air includes trace amounts of many other chemical compounds.
Many substances of natural origin may be present in locally and seasonally variable small amounts as aerosols in an unfiltered air sample, including dust of mineral and organic composition and spores, sea spray, volcanic ash. Various industrial pollutants may be present as gases or aerosols, such as chlorine, fluorine compounds and elemental mercury vapor. Sulfur compounds such as hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide may be derived from natural sources or from industrial air pollution; the relative concentration of gases remains constant until about 10,000 m. In general, air pressure and density decrease with altitude in the atmosphere. However, temperature has a more complicated profile with altitude, may remain constant or increase with altitude in some regions; because the general pattern of the temperature/altitude profile is constant and measurable by means of instrumented balloon soundings, the temperature behavior provides a useful metric to distinguish atmospheric layers. In this way, Earth's atmosphere can be divided into five main layers.
Excluding the exosphere, the atmosphere has four primary layers, which are the troposphere, stratosphere and thermosphere. From highest to lowest, the five main layers are: Exosphere: 700 to 10,000 km Thermosphere: 80 to 700 km Mesosphere: 50 to 80 km Stratosphere: 12 to 50 km Troposphere: 0 to 12 km The exosphere is the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere, it extends from the exobase, located at the top of the thermosphere at an altitude of about 700 km above sea level, to about 10,000 km where it merges into the solar wind. This layer is composed of low densities of hydrogen and several heavier molecules including nitrogen and carbon dioxide closer to the exobase; the atoms and molecules are so far apart that they can travel hundreds of kilometers without colliding with one another. Thus, the exosphere no longer behaves like a gas, the particles escape into space; these free-moving particles follow ballistic trajectories and may migrate in and out of the magnetosphere or the solar wind. The exosphere is located too far above Earth for any meteorological phenomena to be possible.
However, the aurora borealis and aurora australis sometimes occur in the lower part of the exosphere, where they overlap into the thermosphere. The exosphere contains most of the satellites orbiting Earth; the thermosphere is the second-highest layer of Earth's atmosphere. It extends from the mesopause at an altitude of about 80 km up to the thermopause at an altitude range of 500–1000 km; the height of the thermopause varies due to changes in solar activity. Because the thermopause lies at the lower boundary of the exosphere, it is referred to as the exobase; the lower part of the thermosphere, from 80 to 550 kilometres above Earth's surface, contains the ionosphere. The temperature of the thermosphere increases with height. Unlike the stratosphere beneath it, wherein a temperature inversion is due to the absorption of radiation by ozone, the inversion in the t
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Incorporated d/b/a OCLC is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs". It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded by the fees that libraries have to pay for its services. OCLC maintains the Dewey Decimal Classification system. OCLC began in 1967, as the Ohio College Library Center, through a collaboration of university presidents, vice presidents, library directors who wanted to create a cooperative computerized network for libraries in the state of Ohio; the group first met on July 5, 1967 on the campus of the Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization, hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, to design the shared cataloging system.
Kilgour wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. The plan was to merge the catalogs of Ohio libraries electronically through a computer network and database to streamline operations, control costs, increase efficiency in library management, bringing libraries together to cooperatively keep track of the world's information in order to best serve researchers and scholars; the first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26, 1971. This was the first online cataloging by any library worldwide. Membership in OCLC is based on use of services and contribution of data. Between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. In 2002, the governance structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States.
As OCLC expanded services in the United States outside Ohio, it relied on establishing strategic partnerships with "networks", organizations that provided training and marketing services. By 2008, there were 15 independent United States regional service providers. OCLC networks played a key role in OCLC governance, with networks electing delegates to serve on the OCLC Members Council. During 2008, OCLC commissioned two studies to look at distribution channels. In early 2009, OCLC negotiated new contracts with the former networks and opened a centralized support center. OCLC provides bibliographic and full-text information to anyone. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog, the largest online public access catalog in the world. WorldCat has holding records from private libraries worldwide; the Open WorldCat program, launched in late 2003, exposed a subset of WorldCat records to Web users via popular Internet search and bookselling sites.
In October 2005, the OCLC technical staff began a wiki project, WikiD, allowing readers to add commentary and structured-field information associated with any WorldCat record. WikiD was phased out; the Online Computer Library Center acquired the trademark and copyrights associated with the Dewey Decimal Classification System when it bought Forest Press in 1988. A browser for books with their Dewey Decimal Classifications was available until July 2013; until August 2009, when it was sold to Backstage Library Works, OCLC owned a preservation microfilm and digitization operation called the OCLC Preservation Service Center, with its principal office in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The reference management service QuestionPoint provides libraries with tools to communicate with users; this around-the-clock reference service is provided by a cooperative of participating global libraries. Starting in 1971, OCLC produced catalog cards for members alongside its shared online catalog. OCLC commercially sells software, such as CONTENTdm for managing digital collections.
It offers the bibliographic discovery system WorldCat Discovery, which allows for library patrons to use a single search interface to access an institution's catalog, database subscriptions and more. OCLC has been conducting research for the library community for more than 30 years. In accordance with its mission, OCLC makes its research outcomes known through various publications; these publications, including journal articles, reports and presentations, are available through the organization's website. OCLC Publications – Research articles from various journals including Code4Lib Journal, OCLC Research, Reference & User Services Quarterly, College & Research Libraries News, Art Libraries Journal, National Education Association Newsletter; the most recent publications are displayed first, all archived resources, starting in 1970, are available. Membership Reports – A number of significant reports on topics ranging from virtual reference in libraries to perceptions about library funding. Newsletters – Current and archived newsletters for the library and archive community.
Presentations – Presentations from both guest speakers and OCLC research from conferences and other events. The presentations are organized into five categories: Conference presentations, Dewey presentations, Distinguished Seminar Series, Guest presentations, Research staff
Tonne
The tonne referred to as the metric ton in the United States and Canada, is a non-SI metric unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms or one megagram. It is equivalent to 2,204.6 pounds, 1.102 short tons or 0.984 long tons. Although not part of the SI, the tonne is accepted for use with SI units and prefixes by the International Committee for Weights and Measures; the tonne is derived from the weight of 1 cubic metre of pure water. The SI symbol for the tonne is't', adopted at the same time as the unit in 1879, its use is official for the metric ton in the United States, having been adopted by the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology. It is a symbol, not an abbreviation, should not be followed by a period. Use of upper and lower case is significant, use of other letter combinations is not permitted and would lead to ambiguity. For example,'T','MT','Mt','mt' are the SI symbols for the tesla, megatesla and millitonne respectively. If describing TNT equivalent units of energy, this is equivalent to 4.184 petajoules.
In French and most varieties of English, tonne is the correct spelling. It is pronounced the same as ton, but when it is important to clarify that the metric term is meant, rather than short ton, the final "e" can be pronounced, i.e. "tonny". In Australia, it is pronounced. Before metrication in the UK the unit used for most purposes was the Imperial ton of 2,240 pounds avoirdupois or 20 hundredweight, equivalent to 1,016 kg, differing by just 1.6% from the tonne. The UK Weights and Measures Act 1985 explicitly excluded from use for trade certain imperial units, including the ton, unless the item being sold or the weighing equipment being used was weighed or certified prior to 1 December 1980, then only if the buyer was made aware that the weight of the item was measured in imperial units. In the United States metric ton is the name for this unit used and recommended by NIST. Both spellings are acceptable in Canadian usage. Ton and tonne are both derived from a Germanic word in general use in the North Sea area since the Middle Ages to designate a large cask, or tun.
A full tun, standing about a metre high, could weigh a tonne. An English tun of wine weighs a tonne, 954 kg if full of water, a little less for wine; the spelling tonne pre-dates the introduction of the SI in 1960. In the United States, the unit was referred to using the French words millier or tonneau, but these terms are now obsolete; the Imperial and US customary units comparable to the tonne are both spelled ton in English, though they differ in mass. One tonne is equivalent to: Metric/SI: 1 megagram. Equal to 1000000 grams or 1000 kilograms. Megagram, Mg, is the official SI unit. Mg is distinct from milligram. Pounds: Exactly 1000/0.453 592 37 lb, or 2204.622622 lb. US/Short tons: Exactly 1/0.907 184 74 short tons, or 1.102311311 ST. One short ton is 0.90718474 t. Imperial/Long tons: Exactly 1/1.016 046 9088 long tons, or 0.9842065276 LT. One long ton is 1.0160469088 t. For multiples of the tonne, it is more usual to speak of millions of tonnes. Kilotonne and gigatonne are more used for the energy of nuclear explosions and other events in equivalent mass of TNT loosely as approximate figures.
When used in this context, there is little need to distinguish between metric and other tons, the unit is spelt either as ton or tonne with the relevant prefix attached. *The equivalent units columns use the short scale large-number naming system used in most English-language countries, e.g. 1 billion = 1,000 million = 1,000,000,000.†Values in the equivalent short and long tons columns are rounded to five significant figures, see Conversions for exact values.ǂThough non-standard, the symbol "kt" is used for knot, a unit of speed for aircraft and sea-going vessels, should not be confused with kilotonne. A metric ton unit can mean 10 kilograms within metal trading within the US, it traditionally referred to a metric ton of ore containing 1% of metal. The following excerpt from a mining geology textbook describes its usage in the particular case of tungsten: "Tungsten concentrates are traded in metric tonne units (originally designating one tonne of ore containing 1% of WO3, today used to measure WO3 quantities in 10 kg units.
One metric tonne unit of tungsten contains 7.93 kilograms of tungsten." Note that tungsten is known as wolfram and has the atomic symbol W. In the case of uranium, the acronym MTU is sometimes considered to be metric ton of uranium, meaning 1,000 kg. A gigatonne of carbon dioxide equivalent is a unit used by the UN climate change panel, IPCC, to measure the effect of a technolo
