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EES 160 > Destructive Processes > Flashcards

Destructive Processes Flashcards

1
Q

How does the Earth System function?

A

By remaining in equilibrium in the constructive and destructive processes

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2
Q

What are the major processes?

A

Constructive and Destructive

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3
Q

What’s a heat engine?

A

An engine is that converts thermal energy into useful work

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4
Q

What’s an engine?

A

A machine with moving parts that converts power into motion.

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5
Q

What’s the difference in terrain development?

A

The amount of moisture in the terrains

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6
Q

What’s weathering?

A

The breakdown or rocks and minerals through contact with the Earth’s atmosphere.

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7
Q

Where does weathering occur?

A

in Situ with “no movement”

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8
Q

What’s erosion?

A

The transportation or movement of rock materials by agents such as water, ice, wind, and gravity.

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9
Q

What’s the relationship between constructive and destructive processes?

A

Constructive processes have an internal heat engine and creates or builds new land. Destructive processes have an external heat engine and tears down or destroys land.

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10
Q

What’s the difference between weathering and erosion?

A

Weathering does not involve movement or transportation but erosion does

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11
Q

What’s mechanical weathering?

A

The disintegration of rocks or minerals through direct contact with atmospheric conditions, such as heat, water, ice, pressure, and biological agents

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12
Q

What’s another name for mechanical weathering?

A

Physical weathering

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13
Q

What’s chemical weathering?

A

The decomposition (decay) of rock or minerals resulting in chemical changes through the direct effects of atmospheric or biological chemicals.

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14
Q

What’s a joint?

A

A fracture or break in a rock where there has been no movemen`t in the plane of the fracture

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15
Q

How is a joint different than a fault?

A

A joint haves no movement in the plane of the fracture but a fault does.

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16
Q

What’s the difference between disintegration and decay (decomposition)?

A

Disintegration is the process of losing cohesion or strength. Decomposition is the state or process of rotting or decay.

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17
Q

What’s the influence of joints on weathering?

A

They form free space in rocks by which other agents of chemical or physical weathering can enter

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18
Q

What’s root wedging?

A

Is where plant roots can extend into fractures and grow, causing expansion of the fracture

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19
Q

Which type of weathering does root wedging occur?

A

Mechanical

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20
Q

How do joints form?

A

As a result of expanison due to cooling or relief of pressure as overlying rocks are removed by erosion

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21
Q

What are exfoliation (sheeting)?

A

A type of rock weathering where the rock’s layers peel off in whole sheets instead of grain by grain

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22
Q

What are the types of mechanical weathering?

A

Ice wedging, thermal stress, exfoliation, salt, and abrasion

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23
Q

What’s ice wedging?

A

The increase in volume of the water and as the water freezes it expands and exerts a force on its surroundings.

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24
Q

What’s a talus cone?

A

Scree debris formed to make a scree slope

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25
Q

How is a talus cone formed?

A

By the dry accumulation of loose scree material

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26
Q

What’s a felsenmeer?

A

An exposed rock surface that have been quickly broken up by most frost action so that much rock is buried under a cover of angular shattered boulders.

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27
Q

What’s thermal stress?

A

Is the expansion and contraction of rock due to daily temperature changes or fires. Is effective in deserts or fires.

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28
Q

What’s salt weathering?

A

The result of physical disintegration of rocks or minerals due to the growth and expansion of various salt crystals that confine to the pores and fissures of rocks or clasts.

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29
Q

What’s biological activity?

A

Where living organisms contribute to the weathering process in many ways.

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30
Q

What’s the importance of mechanical weathering?

A

To increase the surface area of rock exposed to chemical weathering

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31
Q

Why is increased surface area of a rock or mineral important?

A

Because more weathering will occur resulting in a direct relationship, moves more rapidly, and chemical change

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32
Q

What is the importance of physical weathering for increasing surface area?

A

To allow chemical weathering to increase

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33
Q

What’s the difference between mechanical and chemical weathering?

A

Mechanical weathering involves physically breaking rocks into fragments without changing the chemical make-up.
Chemical weathering involves a chemical change in at least some of the minerals within a rock.

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34
Q

Why is water such an effective chemical-weathering agent?

A

Water is a polar molecule, releases H+ ions, is abundant, and carries chemically active ions that attach rock constituents

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35
Q

What’s a polar molecule?

A

A molecule that can get drawn into rocks that form weak bonds with unsatisfied ones

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36
Q

What do polar molecules move?

A

By capilarity

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37
Q

What’s oxidation?

A

The breakdown of rock by oxygen and water, often giving iron-rich rocks a rusty-colored weathered surface.

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38
Q

What’s a weathering rind?

A

A discolored, chemically altered, outer zone or later of a discrete rock fragment formed by the processes of weathering.

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39
Q

What’s carbonation?

A

Is the mixing of water with carbon dioxide to make carbonic acid and makes rocks dissolve

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40
Q

What’s the poly-atomic statement of carbonate calcite?

A

CaCO3

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41
Q

What are the effects of hydration plus oxygen?

A

Acidic solutions transform feldspar to clays and dissolves carbonates

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42
Q

What are the roles of carbon dioxide in weathering?

A

It forms carbonic acid which produces calcium carbonate or limestone

43
Q

What’s hydrolysis?

A

Where acid rain reacts with rock-forming minerals such as feldspar to produce clay and salts that are removed in solution. Attack by water breakdowns ions -H+

44
Q

How do everyday chemical agents, like water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide, cause rocks (and our creations) to decompose?

A

Through oxidation, carbonation, hydration, hydrolysis, and organic acids

45
Q

What are the types of chemical weathering.

A

Through oxidation, carbonation, hydration, hydrolysis, and organic acids

46
Q

What is a soil?

A

A natural layered mixture of abiotic and biotic material, plus air and water, that forms the interface between the lithosphere and atmosphere

47
Q

what’s a regolith?

A

A layer of loose, heterogeneous material covering solid rock and lacks substantial organic matter

48
Q

What is the formation of soil?

A

ground state -> A horizon -> B horizon

-> C horizon (Soil)

49
Q

What does the ground state carry?

A

Organic matter

50
Q

Is iron being carried up from the soil or down to the soil?

A

Down

51
Q

How does weathering effect soils?

A

The rocks and minerals are broken down to form soils and give soils its’ texture

52
Q

Differential weathering (why do different substances weather differently)

A

The mineral and structure of a rock affects its’ susceptibility to weathering., solubility, planes of weakness, rainfall, temperature

53
Q

What’s the relationship with spheroidal weathering and joints?

A

The results in the formation of concentric or spherical layers of highly decayed rock with weathered bedrock that’s known as saprolite.

54
Q

What are the steps for spheroidal weathering and joints?

A
  1. Joints erode
  2. water penetrates the rock
  3. The fragments that are left will be weathered forming onion-like weathering
55
Q

How is soil related to weathering?

A

Different rocks and minerals affect the different types of soils

56
Q

How is weathering the key to life?

A

It releases nutrients and minerals to the soil and allow new rocks to form due to the rock cycle.

57
Q

How do streams erode or transport Earth materials?

A

Through abrasion, hydraulicaction, and solution. Hydrologic cycle

58
Q

What are the types of stream erosion?

A

Downcutting, lateral erosion, and headward erosion.

59
Q

What is it called when sediments are deposited by a stream?

A

Alluvium

60
Q

Name two areas where off stream deposition occurs?

A

Floodplain and delta

61
Q

Where are deltas found?

A

Where a stream enters a standing body of water

62
Q

How does a stream transport sediments?

A

Through a bedload, suspended load, and dissolved load

63
Q

From where do streams derive their energy?

A

A slope

64
Q

What are the agents of erosion?

A

Streams, groundwater, wind, mass movement, glaciers, waves and tides

65
Q

What are the three task the agents of erosion perform?

A

Erosion, transport, and deposit

66
Q

How much of the Earth’s surface is covered with water?

A

70%

67
Q

How much of Earth’s water is in the oceans?

A

96.5%

68
Q

How much water does the Earth contain?

A

less than 1%

69
Q

How long would Earth’s water be if we can fit it in a spherical bubble?

A

860 miles in diameter

70
Q

What’s the hydrologic cycle?

A

The continuous cyclic movement of water on, above, and below the Earth’s surface.

71
Q

Which of the agents of erosion is indirectly influenced in the hydrologic cycle?

A

Wind and mass movement

72
Q

What is the equation to determine the potential energy in waves?

A

M * g* h

73
Q

Where is the low and high discharge located on a slope?

A

The low discharge is located on top of the slope and the high discharge is located at the bottom of the slope

74
Q

What’s the longitudinal profile?

A

Is a diagram of how streams get it’s energy. Slope, headwater, and mouth

75
Q

What does discharge describe?

A

How much water is being deposited

76
Q

Is there high or low discharge if the gradient is low?

A

high

77
Q

Gradient is used to define what?

A

The slope that allows a lot of water to go through

78
Q

What’s Abrasion?

A

Where streams carry material in it’s bed, break down rocks, and transport it

79
Q

What’s a bed load?

A

Clasts that bounce or roll along the stream bed

80
Q

What’s a suspended load?

A

Very fine grains (clay or silt) that mix with the water and don’t sink back to the river bed

81
Q

What’s a dissolved load?

A

Ions in a solution

82
Q

How are suspended loads carried?

A

Through muddy streams in turbulent water and motion

83
Q

How are dissolved loads carried?

A

Through streams that contain chemical solutions and may end up in the ocean

84
Q

How are bed loads carried?

A

On the stream bed by traction (rolling, sliding, dragging, or bounding (saltation))

85
Q

What’s a floodplain?

A

The drop of loads on adjacent areas

86
Q

When does a stream lose it’s energy?

A

When it hits the flat area (low gradient)

87
Q

What’s hydraulic actions?

A

The force and pressure of water that breaks up bug boulders of rocks and transport them

88
Q

What’s solution?

A

Where rocks are dissolved by the slightly acidic water of streams then the sediments are feed and transported

89
Q

What’s lateral cutting?

A

Streams cutting in the floodplain horizontally to slow down itself

90
Q

What’s headward cutting?

A

Streams cutting in the floodplain vertically to slow down itself

91
Q

What’s down cutting?

A

When it rains an area fills with water and move the boulders down

92
Q

What’s alluvium?

A

Sediments deposited by a stream

93
Q

What’s a delta?

A

Layers of sediments that are dropped at the mouth of the river

94
Q

What are levees and what are they used for?

A

A natural or artificial wall that blocks water from going where we don’t want it to go

95
Q

What’s the base level of a stream?

A

The lowest points to which it can flow, often referred as the mouth of the river

96
Q

What’s a runoff?

A

Movement of water over land via streams

97
Q

What’s a headwater?

A

Place where streams start

98
Q

What’s an example of a headwater?

A

A V-shaped stream valley

99
Q

What’s a stream?

A

Any body of running water confined to a channel, often starting in mountains and ending at the sea

100
Q

What’s a drainage basin?

A

The total area of land drained by a stream and all of its branches or tributaries/ feeders

101
Q

What’s another word for drainage basin?

A

Watershed

102
Q

What’s a stream meandering?

A

A stream that is sinuous and develop in areas with low gradients. (Have a lot of curves)

103
Q

What are the hazards with loving along a stream?

A

Floods

EES 160 (15 decks)

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